For Whom the Pronoun Stands

In my post about may versus might I included the sentences, “Don may be forced to fire Ted if he cannot resist the temptations of YouTube while at work. I’ve heard that he might seek counseling to curb his addiction.” In rereading that example, I wondered if my pronoun use was perhaps unclear. Naturally, that made me wish to post about how I could tell.

In short, the general rule runs thus: unless the sentence otherwise specifies to which person it refers, a pronoun used refers to the last person/group/object named. That means that you have to pay attention to the gender and number of the pronoun. In my example you’ve only the two to choose from which makes identifying “he” much simpler. What if I had written about Don, Ted, and Dave from HR?

“Dave told Don that he may be forced to fire Ted if he cannot resist those great kitten videos while on the clock. He said he’d heard that he might seek counseling for his problem.”

In the first sentence we’ve referred to both Don and Ted as “he” but only after using their respective names to identify them. In the second I am theoretically still writing about Ted except that the sentence doesn’t make sense if he is the only subject.

As the entire raison d’être of pronouns is their ability to stand in for nouns so that you need not use a name over and over in your writing, I’d never advocate avoiding them. You’d end up with something like this:

“Dave told Don that Don may be forced to fire Ted if Ted cannot resist Daft Punk mash-up videos at Ted’s desk. Don said Don had heard that Ted was going to Daft Rehab.”

Who wants to read that sort of garbage, let alone write it?

You must remember that your audience doesn’t have the inside knowledge you do of the situation, fictional or factual. When you write you already know who acts, who feels what, and who speaks to whom. If you’re on fire with creativity you may not notice how often you substitute pronouns for names. Cast an eye over what you’ve written and consider whether your readers can tell the difference between Ted and Don in any given sentence. You’ll be doing all of you a favor.

Dictionary Foolishness: Everybody and Everyone

I attempted to research any difference between everybody and everyone today. I discovered a curious thing: Merriam-Webster each of these terms by using the other. Everyone is defined as “every person: everybody” while everybody displays an even more succinct definition of “everyone”.

Dictionary.com defines both as “every person”. From everything else that I read, writers make no distinction in use between the two. Both are indefinite pronouns. The only difference I could uncover was that everyone originated in the 1100s and everybody dates back to the 1500s.

I find no reason to believe that one or the other works in more formal writing. If you seek a formal version, try using the word each, instead. Each person or one or student means the same as everybody, as well.

Which term you choose depends solely on your preference. All of these terms work the same, to indicate a single person in a group without specifying which one is meant. Everybody knows that, and everyone has his or her own writing style. Each of us may avoid the entire question by writing in the second person. All of you can do that, can't you?

Reflexive Prounouns and Other Pet Peeves

In all my blather about pronouns, I haven't adequately addressed reflexive pronouns. If you don't understand that sentence, suffice it to say that words like myself, himself, yourself, and herself are pronouns that you use when the subject does, says, or feels something about itself. In preparing to write the post, I came across this grammar rant that does the job quite well. Rather than gild the lily, I'll just leave the link.

That leaves me, however, with very little to post today. I thought I'd throw out some other grammar rants for your entertainment (and possible edification). Enjoy!

David Gagne posts quite a few rants, but this one about non-words struck me as particularly pet-peevish. By that, I mean that I agree with him, particularly that itch is a noun and only a noun. Then again, he'll probably post one about my adding two hyphenated fake words in the same sentence as the link to his post.

Have you not been entertained enough? Then check out the Grammar Rant Thread on Apple Insider. My favorite section was the the improper use of the phrase “illiterate knobcheese”, supplemented by LOLcats. I couldn't make up this level of quality! (In truth, you will find good information and useful examples here, interspersed with enough silliness to keep you interested. But be aware that the thread is rated “R”and is appropriate for adults only.)

Quickie Post: More Grammar in the News

I haven’t posted a “Grammar in the News” list in weeks. Imagine my delight at immediately finding a recent piece from Minnesota Public Radio about collective nouns and team names that meshed so well with my recent post about collective nouns in general.

Then I discovered Grammar Girl’s post on gender-neutral slang pronouns. While I cannot believe that “yo” will replace “him or her” as the ambiguous singular pronoun of choice, the article covers some interesting ground.

Jeremy G. Burton has an article in today’s Scranton, Pennsylvania Times-Tribune about non-traditional grammar and writing instruction.

Step Three: Pronoun Wrap-Up

I know that you are all eagerly awaiting a lengthy discourse on the other types of pronouns. I have, however, made my point about learning the difference between subjective and objective pronouns. I would only appear indulgent to you if I continued the diatribe.

I will, however, offer some links to information on the other types of pronouns. The Internet Grammar of English offers a lengthy list of other types of pronouns for your perusal. The Tongue Untied has a solid pronoun section covering six types, as well. They have included an informative segment on relative pronouns and understanding which works where.

Visit The Writing Centre at the University of Ottawa, if you've not run across their site in your travels. They have a nice, long section on pronouns. They also offer a more interesting page on tricky pronoun questions Explore their HyperGrammar section, while you're there.

As ever, please drop me a note if you have questions or need help with a specific usage problem. I'm happy to give or find an answer for you.

Step Two: Objective Pronouns

Now that I’ve explained both the source of my frustration and how you use subjective pronouns, I’ll turn my attention to objective pronouns.

You choose the objective form of a pronoun when the word is, surprisingly, the object of a phrase, clause, or sentence. In, “She went with him,” him answers the question, “With whom?” That makes him the object of the preposition.

(Whom is an objective pronoun, but the objective form of the interrogative pronoun “who”. The more you talk and write about pronouns, the more aside you find yourself making.)

Alternatively, in “She slapped her,” you have no pronoun to give you a clue. You still have a question to answer, however. “Who did she slap?” “Her” receives the action of the verb, and that means “her” is an object, too.

I believe we’re ready for the list, now. Here it is: you, her, him, it, us, you, and them.

(“You” offers a lovely escape from the dangerous pronoun waters, allowing you to skim over problems of gender and number as well as to avoid deciding whether your pronoun acts as a subject or object. I highly recommend it to you as a form of address in relatively informal writing.)

Which pronoun you use depends entirely on its role, not on the attempted formality—or lack thereof—in your tone. You sound less dignified, not more, when you choose to say, “2-Duh danced with she and I but I didn’t touch him.”

When you find yourself about to speak a sentence of that nature (or to write a sentence involving compound pronouns), compose the sentence with only one person acting as the subject or object. Would you say, “2-Duh danced with I” or “He danced with she”? If you cannot see a problem there, I can’t help you.

Step One: Subjective Pronouns

If you missed it, please read my introductory post to understand why I am sounding so snarky about pronoun use.

When you use a pronoun as the subject of the sentence or a clause (as I have just and am about to use “you”), you’ve employed the subjective case of that pronoun. Please enjoy this exciting list of the appropriate pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and who.

Now that you’ve settled down again, let’s consider why you care which pronoun forms act as subject. You treat a subject pronoun as if it were any other subject. It must agree in number with your verb and any objects.

When you create a compound sentence, such as, “She and I caught a show,” you use two subjects. The words work together just as if you’d said, “Shelly and Fred caught a show.” Using the subjective case tells your readers that you’ve made a complete sentence and that “she and I” are not the object of some other word that you’ve been foolish enough to omit or assume.

Up next: what objective pronouns look like and why you should care about that. After that, I’ll elucidate you on how to remember which pronoun belongs in which part of a sentence. Don’t worry, you can do it! [For those of you already well versed in pronoun use, please remember that I’m railing against misuse, not you. Bear with me, and I’ll post about other matters between my rants.]

After I posted this, I came across a prime example at The Grammar Blog. You see? It's not just me.

Choosing Your Pronouns: An Introductory Rant

Over the past twenty-five years, or so, I have noticed an increase in the substitution of incorrect pronouns. Simple mistakes I can understand, but this burgeoning habit comes from a more insidious source.

In attempts to sound more formal and intelligent, flaky celebrities have been uttering (as haughtily as possible) sentences such as, “Bobby D came to the club with she and I, but we only drank Red Bull.” Disregarding the level of Bull in that sentence, it’s simply, grammatically, wrong.

It’s bad enough to hear people on television and in movies starting sentences with, “Me and Julie are…”. How much worse to hear people deliberately use “I” as an object because they want people to take them seriously? And for the worst thing of all, people emulate how famous people talk.

Celebrities behave badly and speak poorly; they have for a hundred years. There exist only so many avenues for a poor grammar aficionado to address their lax grammatical and “vocabularial” standards. I hereby take a stand against the pronoun abuse that becomes more and more prevalent.

I will post my pronoun manifesto in sections over the coming two weeks. If you cannot wait for more information, click “pronouns” in the tag cloud to the left and join the movement. Vive la resistance!

Back to Basics: Pronouns

Pronouns seem pretty straightforward. You take a noun, you replace it with a word that stands for the object, and you move on. Who wants to write, “Bob started to tidy Bob's apartment. Bob took Bob's shoes to Bob's room and put the shoes in Bob's closet”? He can take his shoes and stick them at that point, for all your readers would care.

Like anything in English, different forms of various pronouns are used in different grammatical situations. Sure, I could set out an enormous list of every form I can recall and explain the use of each. But I'm not going to do that.

Instead, click over to the Internet of English Grammar and their handy pronoun page. Trust me, you'd prefer to read it there, well organized. It's one of their five pages about nouns.

But pronouns have hidden depth under their simple exterior. Wait: if you read that last link you already know that they are pretty complicated. If they were so easy to use, would I have bothered with a whole post dedicated to the things? Pretend I didn't write that.

For those of you who missed it the first time around or haven't been re-reading it every week to admire my fascinating research, I'll post links to my earlier series on using singular pronouns when you don't know (or wish to conceal) the gender of your noun. That will save all of us from my rehashing the whole thing here.

Defining the Problem
Using Plural Pronouns
Neologisms
The Finale

I Versus Me; Us Versus We

People often confuse personal pronoun forms when writing sentences more complicated than, “I see you.” Without knowing what function they perform, you can’t know which case fits. See this table of cases for a list of which pronouns act as subjects and which are objects.

Now that you have that firmly in mind (or have a pretty good idea without looking), let’s take on some sentences with more complicated subjects and objects. Remembering that “me” and “us” are used as objects, you could write the following.

Julie and I are meeting the others at the mall.
Will you pick up Shelly and me by four o’clock?

We bloggers create demand for each other.
Traffic comes to us bloggers from other blogs.

To remember which pronoun fits your sentence, write it without the extraneous explanation. Would you write, “Pick up I”? Certainly, you would not, because you only use “I” and “we” as subjects. “I” am not the object of someone else’s action!

When using “we” and “us” with a noun—usually a group or category of people although this can get more complex when adjectives and other modifiers are thrown into the mix—decide which case fits by narrowing the sentence down to the subject and the verb. If your pronoun is neither of these then use “us”.

I see writers (and hear speakers) that use “I” as an object when they are trying to sound formal. While “me” does sound more informal and often takes the place of “I” in casual conversation (whether it raises my eyebrows or not), “I” is not simply a fancy version of “me”. Thus substituting the subjective case for the objective in sentences like, “Reports made to the Board of Directors and I…” gives the impression that you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. That’s rather the opposite of your intention, isn’t it?

It behooves you to get your pronouns right, whether you are addressing a shareholders’ meeting or blogging about your newest affiliate program. If you want people to take you seriously, you have to take language seriously.

Your Versus You're: An Epic Battle

One of the most-covered grammar topics out there is “you” versus “you're” yet it still ranks as the most frequent error I see. (“Its” and “It's” run a close second in this race.)

As a hypothetical example, take a blog named “Your Fun”. Would you assume that the author intends to tell you about fun things to do or to find on the Internet? In actuality, the blog contains posts “to” other bloggers telling them that a post on their blog is fun. Clearly, at least to me, the writer means “You're Fun”, and intends to compliment other people.

The difference between the two words is easy to remember, if you take your time when you are writing. Stop for a moment and ask yourself if you are saying something is “yours”, indicating ownership and thus no apostrophe.

If you mean that someone sounds or acts like something (“You're silly!”) then you are telling them, “You are...” The apostrophe is simply a way to knock out the space and the letter “a” and create a contraction. In writing, the difference in size barely registers and does not factor into your composition beyond the “should I use contractions?” debate that I covered elsewhere.

Concern yourself with eliminating the contraction and you will solve your own problem. If you mean “you are” then write it. If you don't, then you either have the wrong word or you meant “that belongs to you”. In that case, use “your”. When you talk to your brother about his shoes, it's "your". When you talk about his actions, like his failure to take a shower, it's "you are". "You're stinky, and so are your shoes."

If you still find this difficult, consider that pronouns (you, he, she, they, it) don't have apostrophes in their possessive forms (yours, his, hers, theirs, its). Nouns do. A little attention to your meaning saves a lot of confusion in your writing. You'll also save people who care about language a large amount of frustration.

Writing with an Unspecified Gender: Wrap-Up

This post wraps up my relatively meandering series about writing about a person whose gender you either don’t know or wish to conceal. I had hoped to have a definite opinion on the subject by this point. Unfortunately, I still feel that the best way to deal with the topic is to avoid it by writing in the second person.

When one feels that one must use the third person, one wants to confuse ones readers as little as possible. If one uses the plural pronouns for singular subjects, one runs the risk of mixing up ones self and ones audience. When one chooses the one-note “one”, one alienates readers looking for a more casual tone. One is also forced to repeat oneself rather a lot.

The neologisms offer an interesting alternative but, unless your audience already knows the forms you will use, distract and confuse your readers. In addition, they would - almost without exception - fail to impress or entertain mainstream media editors and publishers. Unless you are using them to make a point, they won’t serve you well in a piece you want to sell.

While using forms “he” or “she” as defaults for writing with an unspecified gender offends some people, it’s by far the easiest way to construct an understandable piece. The key is to be consistent throughout your piece. Don’t change the gender of your subject halfway through! If you missed the first three posts, you can read them as follows.
Defining the Problem
Using Plural Pronouns
Using Neologisms

Writing with Unspecified Gender: Neologisms

There are a few versions of the neologisms created over the past few centuries that one can imagine using on a regular basis. Regardless of the set one choses (check this comprehensive list for a wide variety), using the new words will be a matter of consciously changing one's speech and writing habits. One may be dissuaded from one's experiment by the slow-communication period of adjustment - and of explaining the words to others.

You may have noticed that I used “one” throughout that last paragraph. That was an attempt to test the snooty factor in using it as a substitute for “he or she”. It wasn't difficult to do and it flows naturally, to me. It just seems that people have an aversion to using the word regularly. I blame British television comedies.

I found two other invented sets of words that I could imagine remembering long enough to use. The first is one that has enjoyed acceptance among those who care on the Internet. You would say, “This blogger is foolish. Sie acts like hir pets are important and sie repeats hirself. I'm bored by hir.” Please note that this is only for illustration and is not an actual review. I'd include the link.

Thus “sie” is “she or he”, “hir” is “his or her” (as well as “him or her”), and “hirself” is “himself or herself”. Sie is a German word and enjoys Teutonic flexibility in its meaning, which makes it perfect for this sort of adoption. The change is not drastic and the pronunciation is different enough (or can be) that the words will not be confused with, say, “see” and “hear”.

The second set is the “te, ter, tem” set used by Richard Maurer. Taking my previous example, you would then say, “This blogger is foolish. Te acts like ter pets are important and te repeats temself. I'm bored by tem.” Basically, this set is a singularization of they, their, and them. It's straightforward and easy to understand. Unfortunately, it sounds more like someone doing a bad impression of a Jamaican accent. The set is just too close to the original words to have wide appeal.

The problem with any of these neologisms is that they are new. You could post an explanation in the sidebar of your blog so that new readers understand you but daily verbal use would be intimidating. Could you stand up at an important meeting and say, “Our average customer knows what sie wants,” and then stop your presentation to explain it? If you said, “Te drives like ter the only one on the road!” would your spouse laugh at you?

In short (at length), is the change worth the effort? I like the idea of being on the forefront of change, but in I don't think it will happen. People have been trying for 150 years and not one system has gained long-standing use.

Note: Obviously, I have returned early and I'm glad to have kept the schedule I originally set. Four fish and seven hours in a boat were enough for the kids. Now I'm off to bathe in some aloe and follow it up with much lotion. Thank heavens I didn't sunburn my fingers. I'll post one last entry in this series on Wednesday. Now I need to come up with something for my 100th post tomorrow! Any suggestions?

Writing with an Unspecified Gender: Plural Pronouns

To get an idea of just how muddy the waters of pronoun use are, try reading the first page of this thread about writing role playing games (RPGs). This level of consensus matches more technical grammar discussions, but shows the problem in a less preachy way. I thought it more fun as an example.

Cross My T makes a convincing case for the singular “their” on their wittily-titled page, Everbody loves their Jane Austen. The argument rambles on through dozens of examples in classic literature but they make their case in the second paragraph. They point out that the singular “their” was used and accepted until grammar snobs started regulating English under the rules of Latin grammar. You can read similar assertions in many places, including those cited on this page.

I admit that this argument sways me. People have been reading these books for centuries without finding the pronouns strange or confusing. If using "they" in referring to a person of undetermined gender worked for Jane Austen and HG Wells how can I object?

One problem comes when you are talking about a single person in relation to a pair or group of something else. “The player threw their dice and they landed on an orange square.” What landed - the dice or the player? Using plural pronouns confuses your readers in such circumstances. This distracts them from what you are saying and weakens the impact of your writing. It may cause readers to abandon you entirely and turn to another source.

Consider an unknown hotel guest how has the nasty habit of shaving without cleaning up afterwards. A note has been left by the person who cleaned the room explaining the situation to the manager.

“I won't clean Room 312 again. They leave their hair all over the bath after they shave themselves and it's nasty.”

Regardless of the even nastier things that hotel cleaning staff undoubtedly remove every day, we now have a plural guest with a singular verb. Would you use the invented “themself” or “theirself” to make “they shave” agree?

This has gone on long enough for one day. On Sunday I'll post arguments for and against using other pronoun forms. The variety of invented, gender-neutral constructs surprised me. You could grow accustomed to any of them but no one set has gained general acceptance.

Writing Using an Unspecified Gender: Defining the Problem

Let’s start with a sample sentence so that we know what this discussion covers.

“Each employee must provide HR with his or her form by Tuesday at noon.”
“Each employee must provide HR with their form by Tuesday at noon.”
“Each employee must provide HR with his/her form by Tuesday at noon.”
“Each employee must provide HR with his form by Tuesday at noon.”

An individual sentence allows room for any of these constructions. However, imagine writing an entire page of instructions for that memo. You would write one sentence after another to a mixed audience. How do you choose which pronoun(s) to use?

Do you just pick a gender and apply it throughout? Alternate among the above methods? Use the plural pronouns they and their? Employ the dreaded s/he? The grammatically correct way to write such documents no longer agrees with the politically correct way. Worse, the latter comes across as awkward and smarmy more than concerned with gender equality.

I’ve only defined the problem and this post’s length matches a normal one. I had intended to address this issue in a single post but now see that it will have to be a series. I will do posts on Thursday, August 23rd and Sunday, August 28th about the various options and arguments for and against them. I’m projecting two more parts but a third follow-up may be required if enough information presents itself. I’ll let you know here.