While pundits jumped on the President’s case for saying the Cambridge police acted “stupidly,” I muttered under my breath about his use of “they” when “he” or “she” was called for.

It may be the height of pettiness to demand grammatical perfection of presidents speaking off the cuff. But this isn’t the only time Obama has committed this particular gaff. In a pre-election commercial he said, “Every parent in America wants the same thing: good education for their child.”

Doesn’t a good education include grammar?

Now, I had the same English teachers as our president—at Punahou School, in Honolulu—and to be honest I can’t remember what grammar lessons we got there. But I know that somebody is one of those troublesome indefinite pronouns (like anyone, anybody, everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, no one, and nobody) that is always singular.

I also know that I’m wading into one of the subjects that can make word nerds—not the type usually prone to unbridled passions—go apoplectic. Some recite history and a seemingly infinite string of writers (everyone from Spenser to Shakespeare, from Austen to Auden, from Mark Twain to Rudyard Kipling) who use “they” as a singular pronoun. (See this screed at crossmyt.com.)  Others (like Merriam-Webster’s) argue that if this is how people use the pronoun, we should all accept it. And others, like Grammar Girl, advise us to play it safe by recasting sentences.

I’m interested neither in political correctness nor grammatical hypercorrectness. I’m interested in clarity. Using “their” to refer to a single person blurs lines and introduces ambiguity.

So, Mr. President: We know that Gates is a guy. Don’t use grammar stupidly. Go ahead and say the police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that he was in his own home.

Related posts:

1. Indulging my inner pedagogue