These are grammatically correct:Should I use the plural of "life" in my example?
"A doctor can't risk his patients' lives." Or "people's lives."
These are grammatically correct:
A doctor can't risk his patients' lives.
A doctor can't risk his patient's life.
They aren't factually correct, though. Can you see why?
Yes. More precisely, contrary to what the sentences say, it's entirely possible for them to do so. You may have meant to use shouldn't.Maybe because sometimes doctors do take a risk.
Yes. More precisely, contrary to what the sentences say, it's entirely possible for them to do so. You may have meant to use shouldn't.
It might work in BrE. Most Americans never use the word."Mustn't" is probably even better.
Gender-neutral terminology is preferred in most settings nowadays. "His" used to be the neuter as well as the masculine pronoun in (very careful) English, but it always carried a gender implication that's no longer appropriate (if it ever was). You can easily fix these sentences without resorting to "they" and "their", which are widely used but not universally accepted: Doctors shouldn't risk their patients' lives.Does 'his' sound [STRIKE]fine[/STRIKE] okay to natives? I mean 'doctor' is a masculine noun in Russian, which is not the case in English. I quite often see English native speakers use 'they/their' in such cases (general statements).
