Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[LeBron]

Hello,

here is an example, which shows the problem/question I have:

During the last few years I became more and more acquainted with this person, that�s why I talk with him/her about those very important things.

I don�t know whether the word �person� (I think it is the object) is male or female, that�s why I use �him/her�. Is that right or wrong?

Anyway if I have a couple of those sentences, this �him/her� looks strange and even wrong. Is there a better way to say that, what could I use instead?

Thanks and by the way, Happy New Year!
LeBron

[m_prime]

Hi LeBron

This is a particular problem in English, there are are no singular pronouns that are independent of gender (ie him/her). There are a few ways around this problem.

1). Use 'him/her' as the object, as in your example. However, this is not very elegant and should be avoided if at all possible. It sounds particularly strange given the context of the example sentence, someone the speaker is 'acquainted with' and discusses 'important things' with, but doesn't even know the gender! It almost risks being a contradiction.

2) Assume a male identity. This used to be a common approach but is becoming more and more old-fashioned. It might, also, make the reader believe that the speaker knows the gender of the person in question, when clearly they don't.

3) Substitute a plural pronoun in place of him / her (as I did in the above sentence). This is extremely common in informal, colloquial English (at least in Britain). However, it might be considered to be technically wrong and I would not advise you to use it in formal situations (exam papers).

4) In formal English we would use a 'relative pronoun' (whom in this case) to refer back to the object in the previous clause. This will require some restructing of the relative clause (the 2nd part of your sentence).

'During the last few years I became more and more acquainted with this person, whom I talk with about those very important things'.

All of the above options are equally good or bad - I am sorry but there is no simple solution. Option 4 is quite advanced, if you have not covered relative clauses in your studies you should probably avoid it.

I hope some of this helps.

[LeBron]

Hallo m_prime,

thank you very much for your answer.

Hmm ok, in my example the person should has a definable gender. Well if I became very acquainted with this person, I should at least know the gender haha... I totally agree

But in case I don�t know the gender for some reason (in another context), I can�t choose his or her, without risking a contradiction, right? So in this case I should neither use a relative pronoun nor (better) avoid it at all possible.


Referring to my example above. All in all.. is it ok if I say:

(�) with this person, that�s why I talk with him about (�).

as well as:

(�) with this person, that�s why I talk with her about (�).

?

About your point 4)
The relative pronoun you advised me, sounds very good. But if I'd be the listener, I couldn't define the gender of the person in my example. "Whom" is used for both, male and female, isn't it?

Thanks for your help
LeBron

[m_prime]

Hi LeBron

[LeBron]

Thanks m_prime for your detailed explanation.

Indeed, I actually meant "either" instead of "neither" haha