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I found a sentence in this answer:

"Another example: You work in a kindergarten, and one day a child starts to walk in a strange way, and saying he broke his legs. You examine and find nothing wrong. Then you can reasonably infer that one of his parents broke their legs, since children then often actuate as described,"

I thought this should be corrected to be:

"Then you can reasonably infer that one of his parents broke his/her legs,"

And logically "legs" should be leg(s) given that if one walks in a strange way it doesn't necessarily mean that his/her two legs are hurt.

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Lerner Zhang
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    You can avoid the awkward leg(s) and his/her: You might infer that one of the child's parents had broken a leg. That is idiomatic, and no native speaker would understand it to mean "someone else's leg". – TimR Aug 10 '16 at 13:42
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    This is a typical use of the "Singular they" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they – MorganFR Aug 10 '16 at 13:43
  • As @MorganFR says, this is called singular they, and there is nothing wrong with it. It has been in use for ages, and it certainly "should" not be anything else. – oerkelens Aug 10 '16 at 13:47
  • @oerkelens - The debate "they" vs "he or she" often resurfaces. However we don't see "he/she" much. – MorganFR Aug 10 '16 at 13:53
  • @MorganFR the fact that a debate resurfaces doesn't mean it is an actually worthwhile debate. It usually goes along the lines of I don't like this new "they"-stuff -> Actually, it's really old stuff -> oh. – oerkelens Aug 10 '16 at 13:59
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    I would prefer, "Then you can reasonably infer that one of his parents may have a broken leg," since a two-legged fracture is both less common and would make the parent bedridden rather than "walk in a strange way." It's just poor writing. I have no objection to the singular "they" when it is used correctly. – Mark Hubbard Aug 10 '16 at 14:45
  • I wouldn't take too much notice of the exact text of the answer you linked to, since it's clearly written by a non-native speaker (there are many examples of errors in that answer which native speakers simply wouldn't make, no matter how carelessly they were writing). Thus the Maximum Likelihood Estimation is that since the writer has low competency in English, his exact text isn't worth analysing in any great detail. – FumbleFingers Aug 10 '16 at 14:47
  • Their is used correctly here. While it may sound wrong, and I wouldn't use it for writing in something like Global English, it is correct per usage. – Heather J Aug 10 '16 at 13:51

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