Is Anyone Editing Their Copy?

Matt Thompson asks a much-needed question at Poynter Online: Is Anyone Editing Their Copy?

Of course, some of us would answer, "Yes, and it should be 'his or her copy'!" But that's what makes editing so much fun.

In ancient Rome, the sponsor of a gladiatorial combat was called an "editor," and the association with hacking and slashing has endured for two thousand bloodstained years.

Comments

[Matt]

Thanks for the tag to the article, Crawford. Someone at Poynter made the same point you did about the grammatical accuracy of the headline. So I've added a usage note.

[Mark]

Ummm...no grammatical error. According to Canadian OED it's a disputed use that is gaining in use in spoken and written English. And, according to CP, it's now acceptable to use the plural to refer to the singular he or she. Of course, careful writers get around it by restructuring their sentence to avoid it, and the awkwardness of "his or her."

[John Hayter]

In fact the use of 'their' and 'they' with a singular verb has a long and respectable tradition - that is, if you rate Jane Austen as a good model of English usage. See http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html for an interesting discussion.