The Weltchek Weekly

The sign at the United Airlines’ ticket counter in Mexico City read, The United States is denying entry for non-U.S. citizens who have visited various countries within the last 14 days, unless you are a lawful permanent resident.

Can you detect the problem?

It’s in the latter half of the sentence, i.e., unless you are a lawful permanent resident. The pronoun you should be they because it’s meant to refer to non-U.S. citizens. Both non-U.S. citizens and they are third-person references.

So, to be correct, the full sentence should read, The United States is denying entry for non-U.S. citizens who have visited various countries within the last 14 days, unless they are lawful permanent residents.

This fine grammatical point, referred to as “agreement in person,” calls for matching pronouns to their antecedents (I know, not an everyday term), but all you need to do is read the sentence aloud to hear what’s wrong—and make it right.