Each ------- their

Question

I am still confused how to follow the singular pronoun "each" by the plural possessive pronoun "their".

Not only these examples I state here, but every day I notice such examples everywhere; in books of Google as well as in many pages, for example, Cambridge.

Here are from Yourdictionary:

Italy’s and France’s economies are improving. (Each country possesses their own economy)

Mark’s and Susan’s dogs don’t get along together. (Each person owns their own dog)

https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/possessive-nouns

And here is another example from Cambridge :

Each member of the community should take pride in their local environment.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/each?fbclid=IwAR2t9RpHPRiuibSlJmbIWxDZ5IBKtemdO33YIZP_5uoSJ7u61VEH-ID-bPw

Answer 1

You can understand this as the possesive of "singular-they", which is used when the gender of a person is unknown, or not relevant.

So with Mark and Susan's dogs, you should not use "his" or "her" since they have different genders. Singular "their" is the correct word to use.

With "Each member of the community", the community members have unknown and irrelevant gender, so use "their".

The countries are personified. You could have said "possesses its own economy", but we are treating countries as being like people (of unknown gender), so "their" is a correct alternative.