Are There Any English Teachers Who Can Tell Me If This Is Correct?

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dailey

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Below I am including just a part of an essay that my daughter’s group had to write for class. The teacher took off points because they used “their” (i capatilized it in the text below so it would stand out) instead of he/she because the gender of the character is not known. She said it was a “pronoun-antecedent agreement”. I feel kinda bad because “I” was the one who told them it was okay to used “their” because I found this on the internet …“Their/their (possessive pronoun) use their or theirs to indicate a non-binary or gender-neutral person has possession, instead of his or her/ hers”.
Also, was there suppose to be a comma after BILLY because she marked that wrong as well?

The kids most likely won’t even mention it to the teacher but for my curiously, I would like to know if I misdirected them, lol! Thanks!

“reader that she kills and stuffs her visitors. On the other hand, the narrator and the landlady have some difference as well. First, the narrator had a previous relationship with THEIR victim, but the landlady did not. In the “Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator said that he/she loved the old man and was never wronged by him. In “The Landlady”, the landlady just met BILLY and had no previous relationship to him. Secondly, the narrator feels sympathy for THEIR victim, whereas the landlady did not appear to have any remorse.”
 
In both of those cases I would simply refer to THE victim and avoid the.whole issue.
 
You can’t please everybody. “Their”, when it is used to refer to a singular antecedent, is, as you say, politically correct inclusive language for people who are into “nonbinary” and all that, but grammatically it should only be “his” for a man or “her” for a woman. That’s a Roald Dahl story, isn’t it? I recognize it from years ago. The tenants, including the dead ones, are all male, I think. If so, there’s no reason not to use “his”.
 
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While ‘their’ is gaining popularity, it is actually incorrect in this usage. I would definitely have taken off points for that. The comma is a little more ambiguous, but I would have included it. However, I would also have added the pronoun ‘she’ to the clause – “… the landlady just met Billy, and she had to previous relationship with him.”
 
dailey said:
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The subject is the narrator, but both the narrator and the landlady are identified in the previous sentence in order to make a contrast. Their is used informally with certain words. Notice that in the phrase “the narrator said that he/she loved”, “he/she” is used rather than “they”.

Harbrace College Handbook 7, p. 61:
6b Make a pronoun agree in number with its antecedent.
A singular antecedent (one that would take a singular verb) is referred to by a singular pronoun; a plural antecedent (one that would take a plural verb) is referred to by a plural pronoun …

**(1) In formal English, use a singular pronoun to refer to such antecedents as man, woman, person, kind, sort, each, either, neither, another, anyone, anybody, someone, somebody, one, everyone, everybody, no one, and nobody. …

In informal English, plural pronouns are occasionally used to refer to such words:

INFORMAL: Someone had left their canceled checks on the Xerox machine.​

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The comma after Billy is needed because it is part of an introductory element.

Harbrace College Handbook 7, p. 114:
12b Commas follow introductory elements such as adverb clauses, long phrases, transitional expressions, and interjections.
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Sometimes the comma is omitted when the clause is short and the reading is not made difficult.
 
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Important life lesson here: The teacher isn’t always right, but the teacher is always the teacher. 🤔
 
So are you saying that “their” would have been correct if it was used in a informal situation but not correct for this assignment?
 
In fact I think you are correct. Oh, wait a second… I was supposed to put a comma after “In fact.” With regard to “their,” the teacher has a good point. I think the correct answer there depends on the target readership. Some readers will be confused or irritated by “their” when “he or she” would do. In formal, academic, or traditional writing, it would be a problem.
 
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dailey said:
So are you saying that “their” would have been correct if it was used in a informal situation but not correct for this assignment?
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It is being used nowadays informally, for gender neutral. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator is most probably male *, so the sentence could have been:
First, the narrator had a previous relationship with his victim, but the landlady did not.
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* Most probably male because of the sentence in the story: “You fancy me mad. Mad men know nothing”. And also the pulling of the heavy bed and dismemberment is more likely of a male per the century.
 
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Vico said:
Their is used informally with certain words.
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True – but this sounds like it was an academic essay, and so was not informal.
I agree with @SuscipeMeDomine – the best choice would have been to avoid it by structuring the sentence differently.
 
dailey said:
So are you saying that “their” would have been correct if it was used in a informal situation but not correct for this assignment?
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If you look at the top of this thread, you will see a catchline that reads, “It’s been a while since we’ve seen dailey — their last post was 7 months ago.” Hal, CAF’s friendly computer who writes these little messages, has taken the liberty of pluralizing you. But he had a reason for doing that, namely that he had no way of telling whether you are a man or a woman. He uses “they” to refer to all of us here, and we don’t mind. But he’s not writing an assignment to be read by an English teacher.
 
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About the comma after Billy, is that the beloved Oxford comma, or sumpthin’ else?
 
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It’s not the Oxford comma. That refers to a coma separating the last two items in a list. It falls before the conjunction—usually ‘and’ or ‘or.’
 
The only thing that bothers me more than using THEIR is singing EVER instead of NEVER in “I don’t care if I ___ get back.”
 
My pet peeve is “I could care less!”
It should be “I couldn’t care less!”
 
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