Day 48: Make subjects plural to remove gender bias.

Pronouns and antecedents must agree in number. The most confusing situation is when the antecedent is singular and the singular pronoun is gender specific, such as he or she. To avoid gender problems, many people will use a plural pronoun, which is incorrect. Consider this sentence.

“If someone is a customer, they should write a review.”

The antecedent is “someone,” which is singular, i.e., it refers to one person. However, “they” is plural, i.e., it refers to 2 or more people.

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If you want to use “someone,” the correct pronoun is he or she. Because these are gender-specific, neither one may be appropriate. You can either

 
  1. use he or she for the subject pronoun [“If someone is a customer, he or she should write a review.”] or
  2. make the antecedent plural [“If people are customers, they should write a review.”].

Note: While #2 is accurate now, it is too wordy. A more direct way to revise this sentence is “Customers should write reviews.”