What? The English language isn't perfect?

For those of you who lie awake at night wondering if you used the correct pronoun in a sentence you wrote or spoke recently (yes, I know you are out there), this blog post is written especially for you.

"No student wishing to take the exam will be admitted without ____ voucher."

Which possessive pronoun would you choose to fill in the blank?

Most of us, especially if we are speaking informally, would probably insert "their" in the blank.  "No student wishing to take the exam will be admitted without their voucher."  This sentence is comprehensible to any native English speaker.  Agreed?  But does it set off any grammar alarms in your head? What if you are writing that sentence to include in an official student manual for your school?

Here is the grammar difficulty that may be putting you between a rock and a hard place (as we say in West Texas).  If you insert "his" in the blank, what about the exam takers who are female? Should you hedge your bets by using two pronouns, "his or her," in the blank?  You may get points for political correctness, but probably not for style (it's awkward, especially if you are speaking). Okay, how about "one"?  It's gender-free.  "No student wishing to take the exam will be admitted with one's voucher."  Doesn't work and sounds strange.

So yes, the English language is not perfect.  The choice of a pronoun to use in order to include both genders is not obvious.  In contrast, I would like to point out that the Spanish language does not embroil its speakers in a quandary in similar situations.  In Spanish, "su comprobante " can mean either "his voucher" or "her voucher." Problem solved.

Now you can see why "their" had a good ring to it when inserted in the blank.  "Their" is gender free. The controversy arises because "their" is usually thought of as a plural word, and its antecedent (what is refers to) is singular in the sentence we have been discussing.  Singular antecedents ("no student") and plural pronouns ("their") run up red flags for many usage experts. The observation that such illustrious writers as William Shakespeare and Jane Austen used "their" in a singular sense does not quiet the opponents of "their" for our sentence.

Steven Pinker, in The Sense of Style:  the Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, writes that changing the original sentence so that it has a plural subject is one solution to this grammar conundrum.  "No students wishing to take the exam will be admitted without their vouchers."  That works.  Pinker also suggests changing the sentence to read, "No student wishing to take the exam will be admitted without a voucher," although a clever student might insist on taking the exam using someone else's voucher, since "a" is non-specific.

My decision is made.  If I am speaking or writing informally, I am going to use "their" (and other words like "they" and "themselves") as both a singular and a plural form.  But if I am writing a formal document, I will take the coward's way out and reword the sentence so that I don't lie awake nights fearing that someone (heaven forbid!) will criticize my English grammar usage!