her??

[bieasy]

Hi,

I think I heard on TV something like "Space worker losinge her job" Why not "his"?

[Barb_D]

Hi,

I think I heard on TV something like "Space worker losinge her job" Why not "his"?

One must assume the space worker was female.

[bieasy]

One must assume the space worker was female.

Male + Female shouldn't be "his"?

[Rover_KE]

There's only one space-worker mentioned - a woman.

Rover

[Hedwig]

Male + Female shouldn't be "his"?

Male + female is plural, so it can't be his. But I suppose you mean when gender is not specified. This topic came up quite often in another forum I used to frequent, and following are my conclusions.
For unspecified gender his would have been the pronoun of choice years ago, but nowadays, what with feminism gone stronger and all that, his or her is more fashionable.
In BrE there is a long tradition of using their and treating it like a singular pronoun.
A feminist web friend of mine uses her by default.

H.
Not a teacher

[SoothingDave]

Male + female is plural, so it can't be his. But I suppose you mean when gender is not specified. This topic came up quite often in another forum I used to frequent, and following are my conclusions.
For unspecified gender his would have been the pronoun of choice years ago, but nowadays, what with feminism gone stronger and all that, his or her is more fashionable.
In BrE there is a long tradition of using their and treating it like a singular pronoun.
A feminist web friend of mine uses her by default.

H.
Not a teacher

The use of "their" with a singular object is common in AmE as well.

"Everyone should bring their book."

[Hedwig]

The use of "their" with a singular object is common in AmE as well.

"Everyone should bring their book."

Thanks for your comment. I didn't know that. From my poor experience (books, television, and a few AmE natives) I would have thought it wasn't. Go figure.