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While writing a profile description for a website, I came across this sentence that got me questioning my English grammar proficiency.

I am a multipotentialite who found his calling in content writing.

Grammarly flagged the "his" in the sentence and suggested replacing it with "my". Having used Grammarly for years now, I know its suggestions can be contentious at times. This is one of those times, and I'd love to get a third opinion on this matter.

KillingTime
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Vikas Kumar
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    Most of the regular contributors to this site have a low opinion of the applications like Grammarly, and this is yet another example that supports that low opinion. You are perfectly right about his: Grammarly just 'saw' the I and 'recommended' my, because it can't 'get' the syntax of your sentence. Many people will, however, cringe at your use of multipotentialite. – jsw29 Mar 02 '22 at 16:21
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    Yours is correct. Compare: I am a boy who eats his dinner. (I would, though, reconsider the use of multipotentialite.) – Tinfoil Hat Mar 02 '22 at 16:22
  • Thank you for your answers guys. And yes I will definitely replace multipotentialite with a more suitable word. – Vikas Kumar Mar 02 '22 at 16:26
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    "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love..." ME?! No. – Andy Bonner Mar 02 '22 at 18:50
  • I was about to congratulate you on a good find, @Laurel, but the question there is unclear and the answer unacceptable. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 02 '22 at 19:10
  • @EdwinAshworth I think that question is a little different because of "one of" and because it's asking about number and not person (even though the underlying issue is similar). I took a stab at answering this question, but I'm happy to delete it if there's a better answer somewhere else. – MarcInManhattan Mar 02 '22 at 19:22
  • At " 'One of the children who was ...' vs. 'one of the children who were' ", the parsing, reflecting the grouping, is different. '[one of the children,] [who was] ...' vs. '[one of] [the children who were] .... So '[I am a multipotentialite,] [who found my calling] ...' OR '[I am] [a multipotentialite who found his calling] ...'. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 02 '22 at 19:24

1 Answers1

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The pronoun's referent governs its form. Does the calling belong to "I" or to "a multipotentialite"? (Of course those words refer to the same person, but I mean grammatically.)

If the pronoun refers to "I", then it must be "my". However, some people who consider "a multipotentialite" to be in the 3rd person (see below) might find it strange for a different person to find "my" calling.

If the pronoun refers to "a multipotentialite", then we have a choice:

  1. If "a multipotentialite" is considered to be in the 1st person,* then it should still be "my". (Prescriptivists tend to favor ascribing the same case to a predicate nominative as to its referent.)

  2. If "a multipotentialite" is considered to be in the 3rd person, then it should be "his". (Ascribing the 3rd person indiscriminately to predicate nominatives is very common in practice, both in writing and in speech.)

To sum up: Either is justifiable.

*Some people do not like using the term "person" with noun phrases. Nevertheless, my meaning should be clear.

MarcInManhattan
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