GENERIC PRONOUNS

Linguists say that in English, when the gender is known, we use the pronouns “he” or “his-him” to refer to a masculine case and “she” or “her” to refer to a feminine case. For example:

• If my son arrives while I’m in my meeting, tell him to wait for me a little, please .
• If my daugther arrives while I’m in my meeting, tell her to wait a little, please .

This is still true. However, it used to be a linguistic convention that when the gender of the person was unknown, like in the example below, the pronoun “he” or “him” would be used as a generic pronoun.

• I need to go now. If anyone calls, ask him to leave a message.

This case is not true anymore. At present, due to the fact that “he”, “him” and “his” are no longer accepted as generic pronouns to refer to a person of either sex, it has become a convention, out of respect, to use ‘they’ and the correlates “them” or “their”, when the gender of the person is unknown. Also note that in many cases we use an indefinite pronoun as the subject of the sentence,  such as “someone, anyone, person, parent, etcetera”.  Here are some examples:

• I need to go now. If anyone calls, ask them to leave a message.

• Someone has forgotten their briefcase in my office.
• Each person on this list was given their bonus.
• The person who is missing on this list didn´t leave their address.
• Any teacher would be concerned about their students doing poorly at school.
• Nobody wanted to give us their email address.
• One of my neighbors left their phone in my home.
• Do you know who the owner of this car is? I need to talk to them.
• Whoever said this dish was delicious, they were right!

• The person we interviewed did not reveal where they got their information.
• To get started, every employee introduced themselves.

• Everyone attended the meeting, didn’t they?

It should be noted, however, that this usage is still considered unacceptable by some grammarians, particularly in formal writing, but in most contexts it is perfectly acceptable and is becoming more and more common.

Absolutely. “One”, “You” or “We”  are other generic pronouns  we can use  to talk about people in general. For example:

• One can never know what the future will bring. - Or
• You can never know what the future will bring. - Or
• We can never know what  the future will bring.

1. 1. What´s the difference among them?

It´s a matter of register. In general, grammarians say that  “One” is more formal than “we” or “you”; therefore, it is not as widely used in spoken English. However, the possessive determiner “one’s”  is a little more common in spoken English. For instance:

• Pursuing an education will change one’s life for the better.

But it is also correct to say:

• Pursuing an education will change your life for the better. - Or
• Pursuing an education will change our lives for the better.

1. 2. “One”, “You” or “We”  used as subject or object

“One, you, we” can be used as subject or object of the sentence. They are often used in

their reflexive form oneself, yourself, ourselves, etcetera.

• Helping others reveals a lot about oneself.
• Helping others reveals a lot about yourself.
• Helping others reveals a lot about ourselves.
• We do not want to go  through life all by ourselves, do we?
• You do not want to go  through life all by yourself, do you?
• One does not want to go  through life all by oneself, do they?
• You have to dare to be yourself.
• One has to dare to be oneself.
• We have to dare to be ourselves.
• The ups and downs of life always teach you something about yourself.
• The ups and downs of life always teach us something about ourselves.
• The ups and downs of life always teach us something about oneself.
• The author of this article calls themselves “Rainbow Treasure”.
• The person who donated these presents was so pleased with themselves, they said.

2.3 Can we use generic pronouns interchangeably?

Yes and no. We can normally choose one pronoun or the other for generic reference, but what is important is that we keep consistency throughout our discourse. For example:

• Under such circumstances, you must never lose your hope.
• Under such circumstances, we must never lose our hope.
• Under such circumstances, one  must never lose one´s  hope.

NOT: Under such circumstances, we must never lose one´s   hope

Screen Addiction Among Teens: Is There Such A Thing?

By Anya Kamenetz

2018

PART 1

Look up from this screen right now. Take a look around. On a bus. In a cafe. Even at a stoplight. Chances are, most of the other people in your line of sight are staring at their phones or other (1) devices. And if they don’t happen to have one out, it is certainly tucked away in a pocket or bag. But are we truly addicted to technology? And what about our kids? It’s a scary question, and a big one for scientists right now. Still, while the debate rages on, some doctors and technologists are focusing on solutions.There is a fairly even (2) split in the scientific community about whether “tech addiction” is a real thing, says Dr. Michael Bishop, who runs Summerland, which he calls “a summer camp forscreen overuse” for teens.

Dueling diagnoses

“Technology addiction” doesn’t appear in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM, published in 2013. That’s the bible of the psychiatric profession in the United States. The closest it comes is something called “Internet Gaming Disorder,” and that is listed as a condition for (3) further study, not an official diagnosis. This omission is important not only because it shapes therapists’ and doctors’ understanding of their patients but because without an official DSM code, it is harder to bill (4) insurers for treatment of a specific issue. The World Health Organization has, by contrast, listed “gaming disorder” as a disorder due to an addictive behavior in the next edition of the International Classification of Diseases, an internationally used diagnostic manual.

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras is the author of the 2016 book Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids. When I ask him about the term “addiction” he doesn’t miss a beat. There are brain-imaging studies of the effects of screen time, he says. And he also has treated many teens who are so (5) wrapped up in video games that they don’t even get up to use the bathroom.  He says the evidence is clear, but we’re not ready to face it. “We have, as a society, gone all-in on tech,” he says. “So we don’t want some (6) buzzkilling truth sayers telling us that the emperor has no clothes and that the devices that we’ve all so fallen in love with can be a problem” — especially for kids and their developing brains, he adds.

Addiction may not be an official term in the U.S., at least not yet. But researchers and clinicians like Bishop, who avoid using it, are still (7) concerned about some of the patterns of behavior they see. “I came to this issue out of a place of deep skepticism: addicted to video games? That can’t be right,” said Dr. Douglas Gentile at Iowa State University, who has been researching the effects of media on children for decades. But “I’ve been forced by data to accept that it’s a problem,” he told me when I interviewed him for my book The Art of Screen Time. “Addiction to video games and Internet use, defined as serious dysfunction in multiple aspects of your life that (8) achieves clinical significance, does seem to exist.”

Measuring problematic use

Gentile’s definition doesn’t address the questions of whether media can cause (9) _______or create a true physical dependency. It also doesn’t address the question, raised by some of the clinicians I’ve spoken with, of whether media overuse is best thought of as a symptom of something else, such as (10) _______. Gentile’s definition simply asks whether someone’s relationship to media is causing problems to the extent that the person would benefit from getting some help.

Gentile was one of the co-authors of a study published in November that tried to (11) _______. The study has the subtitle “A Parent Report Measure of Screen Media ‘Addiction’ in Children.” Note that the term addiction is in quotes here.  In the study, researchers asked parents of school-age children to complete a questionnaire based on (12) _______.  For example, it asked: Is their preferred media activity the only thing that puts them (13) ______? Are they angry or otherwise unhappy when forced to unplug? Is their use increasing over time? Do they sneak around to use screens? Does it interfere with (14) _______?

The experts I’ve talked to say that the question of whether an adult, or a child, has a problem with technology can’t be answered simply by measuring screen time. What matters most, this study suggests, is (15) _______, and that requires looking at the full context of life.

Cambridge University Press. (2015). Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Fourth Edition.

Eastwood, J. (2019). Oxford Practice Grammar. Intermediate. Oxford University Press.

Hewings, M. (2013) Advanced Grammar in Use with Answers: A Self-Study Reference  and Practice Book for Advanced Learners of English. CUP

Murray, L. (2014) English Grammar.  Cambridge University Press.

Swan, M & Walter, C. (2016). Oxford English Grammar Course. Intermediate. Oxford University Press.

Images_Compra propia de licencias de banco de imágenes de Pixton y Pngtree, exentas de derechos de autor. https://www-es.pixton.com/ & https://es.pngtree.com/free-backgrounds

• Practice exercise written by Connie Reyes Cruz_2022_ENES- LEÓN-UNAM
• Audio version performed by Kimberly and Matt_Compra propia de licencia de uso de voces en Voicemaker, exenta de derechos de autor. https://voicemaker.in/ _Connie Reyes Cruz_2022_
• Practice exercises written by Connie Reyes Cruz_2022_ UNAM-ENES-LEÓN
• ©2018 National Public Radio, Inc. News report titled "Screen Addiction Among Teens: Is There Such A Thing?" was originally published on NPRed on February 5, 2018 and is used with the permission of NPR. Any unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited. Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license_ https://www.commonlit.org/es/library?contentTypes=text&initiatedFrom=library&language=english&searchQuery=Screen%20addiction%20amon%20Teens
• Practice exercise written by Connie Reyes Cruz
• Image_Compra propia hecha por Connie Reyes Cruz  de licencias de banco de imágenes de Pixton y Pngtree, exentas de derechos de autor. https://www-es.pixton.com/ & https://es.pngtree.com/free-backgrounds.
• Audio version performed by Kimberly and Matt_Compra propia de licencia de uso de voces en Voicemaker, exenta de derechos de autor. https://voicemaker.in/ _Connie Reyes Cruz_2022_