Originally Posted By: BranShea
"Whoever is going to win it'll change their lifes"
is the sentence I hear in a coocking-contest program where dozens of people are determined to change their ordinary lifes for stressy Masterchef heaven.

Every time I hear it I wonder about this construction.

Is whoever considered as singular or plural considering the "their" later on in the sentence?


The use of they/their as an epicene pronoun for the third person singular in English is nearly a millennium old. I learned that here. A written history dating back 700 years or so apparently means it is much too newfangled and recent an innovation to be allowed by "style manuals".