Point 68 in the category of PRONOUNS is defined as:
‘he/she’, ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘they’ to refer back to gender neutral singular nouns or indefinite pronouns when we are not sure of the gender.
Unfortunately these are incredibly hard to locate in corpora due to the punctuation or many other combinations within the clusters. The examples in the EGP include a singular noun to the left of:
- they
- he/she
- his/her (possessive adjective)
- he or she
he/she * * * *
1 HE/SHE WILL BE ABLE TO 334
HE/SHE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR
The Business of Fashion3 HE/SHE MUST BE ABLE TO 148
4 HE/SHE SHOULD BE ABLE TO 146
5 HE/SHE WILL BE REQUIRED TO 129
6 HE/SHE HAS THE RIGHT TO 93
7 HE/SHE WILL NOT BE ABLE 92
8 HE/SHE MAY BE ABLE TO 77
9 HE/SHE WILL BE PLACED ON 63
10 HE/SHE WILL BE EXPECTED TO 59
11 HE/SHE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 57
12 HE/SHE IS ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR 56
13 HE/SHE MAY BE REQUIRED TO 55
14 HE/SHE DOES NOT HAVE A 53
15 HE/SHE IS A MEMBER OF 53
16 HE/SHE WILL BE ASKED TO 52
17 HE/SHE DOES NOT HAVE TO 48
18 HE/SHE WILL BE ALLOWED TO 47
19 HE/SHE WILL BE DISQUALIFIED AND 44
20 HE/SHE WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH 44
(B1 Vocabulary: allowed (1) expected (1) required (2) responsible (3))
1 HE OR SHE WILL BE 4894
* It is interesting that future is very common, and like the above example, this structure is very common with Job descriptions.
Toledo Blade2 HE OR SHE IS NOT 2393
3 HE OR SHE MAY BE 2238
4 HE OR SHE IS A 1932
5 HE OR SHE DOES NOT 1914
6 HE OR SHE HAS BEEN 1890
7 HE OR SHE NEEDS TO 1778
8 HE OR SHE HAS A 1682
9 HE OR SHE WANTS TO 1587
10 HE OR SHE WILL HAVE 1360
11 HE OR SHE SHOULD BE 1275
12 HE OR SHE CAN NOT 1142
13 HE OR SHE MAY HAVE 1107
14 HE OR SHE HAS THE 1012
15 HE OR SHE IS IN 998
16 HE OR SHE MUST BE 920
17 HE OR SHE IS THE 916
18 HE OR SHE WILL NOT 895
19 HE OR SHE WILL ALSO 880
20 HE OR SHE WOULD BE 880