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Since lesson is singular, I guess that it is the correct answer. However, could you please confirm my opinion?

It was Tom's first deep-sea diving lesson and he felt quite nervous. Although he'd never taken this kind of lesson in his life, his desire to try it / them / no words needed revealed when he was ten and used to watch a cartoon.

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    "reveal" doesn't work here. Possible replacements include stemmed / sprung / arose from. Personally, I wouldn't include a pronoun after try - but if you insist, you should use it, reprising the first word of the preceding sentence.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 5, 2022 at 19:51
  • Thanks a lot FumbleFingers!
    – Simo Ita
    Commented Dec 5, 2022 at 20:03
  • This is two unrelated questions. Please limit yourself to only asking one. Since you've gotten a response on your second question, I'm removing it rather than closing the question. If you still want an answer, feel free to ask again in a separate question
    – gotube ♦
    Commented Dec 5, 2022 at 23:07
  • That's fine, thanks gotube!
    – Simo Ita
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 13:39

1 Answer 1

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All three options are grammatically correct.

"It" is the most natural. It refers to deep sea diving.

"Them" is the least natural because it refers to lessons, not deep sea diving, and it seems unlikely that Tom's desire is to try deep sea diving lessons, rather than try deep sea diving itself.

No object for "try" also works because "try" can be intransitive. From the context, it's understood that he's trying deep sea diving.

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  • The word "natural" may be incoherent here. Recommended action is use "common" instead, also edit to mention context of when the example desire occurred, eg "cartoons more likely to inspire a child to do sea diving than to inspire diving lessons"
    – fertilizerspike
    Commented Jan 8, 2023 at 4:19
  • @fertilizerspike "Recommended" by whom? We use the word "natural" all over this site, and not in the sense of "common", but in the sense of what feels normal and correct to native speakers.
    – gotube ♦
    Commented Jan 8, 2023 at 4:37

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