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I'm wondering if this sentence makes sense. If more examples could be offered, that would be appreciated. Thank you.

As long as one has a pastor certificate and gifts and can analyze the Bible, it means they are approved and anointed by God.

herisson
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Daisy White
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  • The author is probably trying to avoid using a gender specific pronoun such as "he". – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Mar 17 '17 at 21:16
  • @FumbleFingers In that one, it seems there was confusion over the referrent: not the case here, although it might still answer the question. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Mar 17 '17 at 21:44
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    It's unclear and likely to confuse the reader, at least momentarily. I would immediately read your example wondering who it is that is approved and anointed by God as long as one has a pastor certificate, before reparsing it correctly. It's not incomprehensible, but definitely not advisable either. Stick with one pronoun (or at least one person/number) per entity per sentence. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 17 '17 at 22:31
  • Since one is already used as a genderless singular pronoun, why not just use it again in place of they? – Lawrence Mar 17 '17 at 22:46
  • @Lawrence Because that's horrible English. "They" is correct here. Its also natural. It avoids gender specificity WITHOUT drawing attention to the fact that it is doing this. If you wrote "As long as one has a pastor certificate and gifts and can analyze the Bible, it means one is approved and anointed by God" then your Leftist agenda would be showing for all to see, you'd be calling yourself out as a LGBT activist essentially. Because "they" is natural English, the author of that sentence might not have an agenda; you don't know. – developerwjk Mar 17 '17 at 23:13
  • @developerwjk It might sound old-fashioned or maybe even pompous to use one twice in a sentence, but its association with the Left and with LGBT activism is new to me. What's the connection? – Lawrence Mar 17 '17 at 23:20
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    @developerwjk I'm astonished to find that for years I've been an unconscious LGBT activist. Perhaps what's natural English for one person is unnatural English for another. Did I say one person? Sorry! There I am showing my true colours! – Ronald Sole Mar 18 '17 at 00:26
  • To my ear, *one* is a little bit starchy - and it becomes much more so if it's repeated, which is why *they* works better. I don't find *it means* at all natural there either. My choice of "non-specific pronoun" here would be *As long as you've a pastor certificate and gifts, and can analyze the Bible, you're approved and anointed by God.* – FumbleFingers Mar 18 '17 at 03:08

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