A Question of Agreement

I’ve received an odd e-mail, but it raises a very good question. I’m answering it here because I just can’t believe it’s for real. A professional journalist would not be e-mailing me to answer such an elementary grammatical question. I’m pretty sure that the e-mail was a phishing expedition. So, editing out all the live links, here’s the query I got from “Paul Buck, Deputy chief sub-editor, news, South China Morning Post,  Hong Kong.”

“Dear editormum, as a professional journalist I should be able to figure this one out, but I can’t. So here goes: Which is correct: He sent 21 people to their deaths OR He sent 21 people to their death ? Google favours the former by 53,600 to 15,600 — and I do too. It’s one of those cases where you find yourself going with what sounds right. But I hate to fall back on instinct! ….”

The answer is that it’s a matter of agreement. The possessive pronoun “their” must agree with the word that it’s modifying in number and gender. As it’s a plural pronoun, it requires a plural to modify. Thus, the correct answer is “He sent 21 people to their deaths.”

The only exception would be if “people” were being used as a collective noun to refer to a specific class of people, which would also require the use of a definite article: The Nazis sought to send the Jewish people to their death. Without the word “the,” the word “deaths” would be required.