Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Who's losing?

It is abhorrent that television reality shows and these sleazy, cheesy gossip rags glorify teen parents.  And even worse, this one models bad grammar to the young people who devour this junk.
“Who’s losing their baby.”  Well, we know that it’s a mom; that means that “she” and “her” are going to be the appropriate pronouns.  Is more than one mom losing a baby?  No—because the sentence begins “Who IS.”  The phrase or sentence should read, “who’s losing her baby” or “Who’s losing her baby?” 
The readers of this periodical are probably young, and possibly not well-educated.  They likely choose trashy lit over textbooks.  At least the editors could do us a favor and provide them with a grammatically legitimate headline.