Here at SEOJames, we are proud to offer the very latest in digital marketing and search engine optimization strategies, but we tend to be just a little bit old-school when it comes to grammar. So you can imagine our reaction to some of the recent announcements that have been handed down by the grammar gods at Merriam Webster.
Yes, there are a lot of things that are changing these days. A lot of things that the vast majority of people think are infinitely more important than the rules of grammar. But, when you have an online marketing company with an honest-to-goodness professional wordsmith on your team, you hear a lot about changes to the accepted rules of the road.
The New Normal
We definitely heard a lot when a long-standing grammar rule came tumbling down recently. We hope you’re sitting down, because this is pretty big stuff. Ready? OK, here goes… It is now perfectly acceptable to use they as a singular pronoun.
Chaos reigned here in the offices of SEO James (actually, it was more like it reigned in one office) for a while when the news broke, but we are happy to report that calm has been restored now.
You probably didn’t even notice the change, because you’ve probably been using it that way ever since you moved on from Mrs. Gregory’s fourth grade English class, where you learned about the singular pronouns, he and she, as well as the plural they.
A certain portion of the population stubbornly clung to the grammatically correct usage of they while secretly wishing they could through caution to the wind (no need to name names, you know who you are). The rest of the world blithely forged ahead, using they instead of the terribly awkward he or she without a care.
It may take a little time, but here at SEO James, an innovative digital marketing agency based in South Florida, we will take this change – and all the other changes that have been thrust upon us lately – in stride.
