And the week before that, you were late because you were helping someone look for their lost cat.
In the above sentence, if it uses "someone", why says: "their cat" and not "her or his cat"?

Question

Answer

The pronoun for someone is usually:
they, their, them
We don't have a genderless singular pronoun.

Answer

The person saying the sentence does not know the gender of the person being helped which is why he/she uses the word 'someone' instead of his/her'

Hope that helped. :)

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Thanks. This is a good and satisfying answer too.

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Hello, Amir: Before the 1960's, native speakers did use "his" in such a sentence. But then many women felt that it was not fair to use "his" to refer to both men and women. So people started to say "his or her." But that took three words. So today most native speakers use "their." (A few people refuse to use "their" or "his or her." They still use "his." But it is a good idea to use "their," for no one wants to hurt the feelings of the ladies.)

Answers · 8

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