Use of they/them/their with neither/either, someone/everyone/no one etc.

These expressions are singular and take a singular verb. Their personal pronouns therefore should be he/she and the possessive adjectives should be his/her (he/his for males and mixed sexes; she/her for females). But many native speakers find this troublesome and often use they/their, even when only one sex is involved:

Neither of them remembered their instructions. Would someone lend me their binoculars?

Everyone has read the notice, haven't they?

No one objected, did they? (See also 51 C.)

70 Reflexive pronouns

A These are: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves,

yourselves, themselves. Note the difference between the second person singular yourself, and the second person plural yourselves. The indefinite reflexive/emphasizing pronoun is oneself.

В myself, yourself etc. are used as objects of a verb when the action of the verb returns to the doer, i.e. when subject and object are the same person:

/ cut myself. He can't shave himself.

It is not always easy to amuse oneself on holiday. Tom and Ann blamed themselves for the accident. This refrigerator defrosts itself.

Note the change of meaning if we replace the reflexive pronoun by the reciprocal pronoun each other:

Tom and Ann blamed each other. (Tom blamed Ann and Ann blamed Tom. See 53 C.)

С myself, yourself etc. are used similarly after a verb + preposition:

He spoke to himself. Did she pay for herself? Look after yourself. Take care of yourselves.

I'm annoyed with myself. He sat by himself, (alone)

She addressed the envelope to herself.

But if the preposition indicates locality, we use the ordinary, not the reflexive, pronouns:

Did you take your dog with you? They put the child between them.

Had he/Did he have any money on him?

71 myself, himself, herself etc. used as emphasizing pronouns

myself etc. can also be used to emphasize a noun or pronoun:

The King himself gave her the medal. self is then stressed in speech.

When used in this way the pronoun is never essential and can be omitted without changing the sense. It usually emphasizes the subject of the sentence and is placed after it:

Ann herself opened the door. Tom himself went. Alternatively it can be placed after the object if there is one:

Ann opened the door herself or after an intransitive verb:

Tom went himself.

If the intransitive verb is followed by a preposition + noun, the emphasizing pronoun can be placed after this noun:

Tom went to London himself or Tom himself went to London. When it emphasizes another noun it is placed immediately after it:

/ saw Tom himself. I spoke to the President himself.

She liked the diamond itself but not the setting. Note the difference between:

/ did it myself (It was done by me and not by someone else) and

/ did it by myself (I did it without help).

Relative pronouns and clauses

There are three kinds of relative clauses: defining (see 72-7), non-defining (78-81) and connective (82).

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