Pronouns

The reader can make of it what they want.  This may seem like a perfectly reasonable sentence in English to most people, but it has a serious problem.  If the word “readers” is plural the problem goes away, but it’s singular for a reason.  The subject is the reader, who is referred to later as “they”.  In this case, “they” is not a plural pronoun, but a singular one meaning “he or she”.  It’s a common usage, but it’s wrong.  So what is the problem?

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