Questions about pronoun and agreement
I have spotted two questions in an essay that I feel confused about.

1) An adult suffering from diabetes since a young age would not be able to consistently work efficiently as he would constantly feel lethargy and weakness.

My question is, if a person's gender identity is unclear in a sentence, like "an adult" or "a person", can we simply use "he"? Or need we use "he or she" or "they"? I personally prefer "they", as it is not too long and can avoid specifying which gender the person belongs to. But I am not sure whether such usage is correct. .

2) Increasing number of health issues are prevalent in young children in recent times.

Here, the verb is "are", which I would agree with, but Microsoft Word believes it should be "is". I want to know which one is correct.

Thank you very mucn!

Question

Questions about pronoun and agreement
I have spotted two questions in an essay that I feel confused about.

1) An adult suffering from diabetes since a young age would not be able to consistently work efficiently as he would constantly feel lethargy and weakness.

My question is, if a person's gender identity is unclear in a sentence, like "an adult" or "a person", can we simply use "he"? Or need we use "he or she" or "they"? I personally prefer "they", as it is not too long and can avoid specifying which gender  the person belongs to. But I am not sure whether such usage is correct. .

2) Increasing number of health issues are prevalent in young children in recent times.

Here, the verb is "are", which I would agree with, but Microsoft Word believes it should be "is". I want to know which one is correct.

Thank you very mucn!

Answer

For your first question, it is all right to use whatever you want. In conversation, "he" would probably be used more often, but saying "they" or "he or she" is fine.
For your second question, I believe it is correct if you say "An increasing number of health issues is prevalent in young children in recent times" or "Increasing numbers of health issues are prevalent in recent times."

Answer

1．Yes, so if you do not know the gender of the person of whom you're speaking of, then "they" would be one of the pronouns you can use.

2. The subject here is "number," and since number is singular, you'd use is instead of are. I feel like this sentence is written a little bit weirdly, but at any rate, the grammatically correct verb would be "is."

Answers · 4

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