Pronoun Agreement Errors

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When making statements that apply to people in general, writers should not use pronouns that favor one gender over the other.

A customer should always know his rights. [biased]

Since many customers are also women, the following revision removes the bias; however, it is awkward.

A customer should always know his or her rights. [unbiased but awkward]

The best way to handle gender bias is to put all of the pronouns and their antecedents into plural forms, since plural pronouns cannot indicate gender.

Customers should always know their rights. [correct and smoother]

A common error, especially in everyday speech, is ditching pronoun agreement for the sake of avoiding gender bias and the awkward he / she constructions. This is not allowable in formal or academic writing.

A customer should always know their rights. [agreement error]

Another common error is to sacrifice the point of view to avoid gender bias and the he / she construction. The rule is that writers should use a consistent point of view, so switching in mid-sentence is definitely out of the question. In addition, writers who err in this manner usually switch to the second person point of view (you, your, yours) which is inappropriate for formal or academic writing.

A customer should always know your rights. [inconsistent point of view, confusing]

In general, writers tend to overuse pronouns, so a final suggestion is to weed out the pronouns and revise the sentences so that neither gender bias nor agreement snarls become an issue.

Well-informed customers can usually spot dishonest business practices before becoming victims.

Recognize singular pronouns and check the agreement. The following indefinite pronouns are singular--even though some of them may sound plural in meaning:

Singular Indefinite Pronouns
another	anything	everybody	either	no one	somebody	whatever
anybody	each	everyone	neither	nothing	someone	whichever
anyone	each one	everything	nobody	one	something	whoever

Remember this general rule: if the pronoun contains the words "one" "thing," or "body," then the pronoun is singular.

Each of the cats have a unique personality. [incorrect]

Each of the cats has a unique personality. [correct]

Make sure that a verb agrees with its subject.

Don't let intervening modifiers confuse you. Whenever in doubt, isolate the simple subject by blocking out the modifiers. Objects of prepositional phrases are the most common sources of confusion.

A batch of pencils sit in a broken mug on my desk. [incorrect]

A batch of pencils sits in a broken mug on my desk. [correct]