Subject-Verb agreement with compound subjects

[sistermagpie]

> Miles:
> > May I add something that I feel to be similar? It's from the PS 
movie, in 
> > the first flying lesson Madam Hooch says:
> > "I see a single broom in the air, the ONE riding it will find 
THEMSELVES out 
> > of Hogwarts before THEY can say 'Quidditch'!"
> > 
> > Doesn't it feel odd for a native speaker to switch to plural, 
although the 
> > sentence starts addressing single persons? I asked a native 
speaker who 
> > assured me that the sentence is correct, because both male and 
female 
> > persons are addressed.
> 
> Geoff:
> Sounds as if your native speaker is an advocate of this wretched PC 
English 
> whereby you can't use "he" to represent a unisex situation. This 
gives rise 
> to such cumbersome usage as "chairperson" or the even 
uglier "chair". 

Magpie:
Perhaps JKR (the native speaker here) just naturally used "they" 
because Hootch was addressing a group of people in front of her so 
wasn't thinking of it as plural. In that situation, speaking to a 
class full of children, saying "he" could easily come across as her 
assuming only a boy would be doing this, so her use of "they" makes 
more sense. She's talking to 11 year olds in the 90s who wouldn't 
find it odd that somebody didn't say "he." "They" often sounds wrong 
to me because I must have been taught along the way to not use it, so 
I use "he or she" or "one." It doesn't feel PC to me so much as 
accurate. Why would I say he when I might mean someone female? I also 
don't find "chair" particularly ugly. Some words sound more gendered 
so I pick the one that means what I'm saying. 

When I was in college if the person was talking about a hypothetical 
situation they always used "she." But to me, I don't assume that 
using a more neutral term has to do with people being hyper-
sensitive. It just seems the more obvious term. I suspect the use 
of "he" pretty much was based on assuming an actual male and 
considering men more important. 

-m