Syntax exercise
1609
5
From The New York Times:

"Our policy is to pay hourly associates for every minute they work," said Mona Williams, vice president for communications at Wal-Mart. "With a company this large, there will inevitably be instances of managers doing the wrong thing. Our policy is if a manager deliberately deletes time, they're dismissed."

Question: why THEY is used in the last sentence, if she talks about A MANAGER?

Any ideas?
Givi
In the last but one sentence she speaks about managerS.
May be lingua lyapsus.
zanuda
In fact, this is an example of the case when so called political correctness actively transforms the English language. In the times of our parents, this sentence would read 'he is dismissed'; later on, it became mandatory to use 'he or she'; nowadays, since 'he or she' looks quite ugly, especially with numerous repetitions, it is accustomed to use a neutral 'they' in the bureaucratic lingo. Go figure, huh?:улыб:
zanuda
The indefinite article here means any manager but from all the managers mentioned in the previous sentence. But THEY are more than one.

Givi
Because a manager in this case means any manager in the company, that's why she used they at the end of the sentence
Givi
I found your name same as have ma friend.
I start learn English only three month ago, I have a lot mistakes but i have same progress to.