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.

Quick Note: Big Changes on the Horizon

I've been working on a complete overhaul of my template for weeks now. I have a completely new look selected but I'm nervous about implementing the change. I'm sticking with Haloscan for comments but the sidebar will be changed from top to bottom.

I hope that the transition is as smooth as it appears. I intend to make the switch next weekend, after one or two more tweaks. I apologize in advance for the inevitable bumps in the road, and for the dearth of posts lately. Once I get things settled I should have more time to post instead of fiddle behind the scenes.

In short, keep your eye on the this space. Let me know of any bugs you discover: buttons that don't work, widgets or items you liked that have disappeared, etc. I'm looking forward to the cleaner, more professional-looking layout. Once I add the tracking code for stats I should be ready. Thanks for your patience, and for reading.

Edited to say that I tried a test revision and completely slaughtered both. I will have to delete all of the sidebar page elements before I attempt to add the new ones. If anyone has done a complete template replacement, I'd love some encouragement or suggestions. Thanks! I promise another exciting pronoun post in the near future.

More -Tion Words and the Passive Voice

Today, I'm thinking again about confounding readers by using the passive voice and -tion words. I have come to the realization that it's a nasty habit.

Can you see how that sentence wasted at least three words? “Realize” stands alone and doesn't require the crutch supplied by “come”. A stronger sentence would have been, “I realize that it is a nasty habit.”

When you add the -tion suffix, you turn a perfectly good verb into a noun that requires support from extra words. Let's try some more examples.

Okay: Anne offered a clear explanation of the problem.
Better: Anne clearly explained the problem.

Bad: We made a determination of our objectives.
Better: We determined our objectives.

Horrid: The intention of this article is to demonstrate a better approach.
Improved: Scrap that altogether. Try, “You will learn a better (safer, easier, pick you adjective) way to...”

That last, horrid example demonstrates not only using a verb to act like a noun but how, when you choose that route, you are forced into a passive construction. Consider “the intention is...” You've created a purely passive sentence by weakening your verb.

You could have written, “I intend,” a shorter phrase that includes someone doing something (abstract though the “action” may be). Doing so leads your reader around the point rather than straight to it. For a much longer discussion with a broader scope, visit Web Writing That Works.

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.

A Political Example: Affect Versus Effect

'm here to set the record straight. No matter to what do-gooder you listen, “effecting a change” is wrong.

I'm all for improving the plight of the down-trodden, saving endangered animals, and curing horrible diseases. But effect is a noun. Whoever came up with that buzz phrase (and I'm willing to bet it was a politician) was simply being clever.

Let's have an example. “I promise that I will effect a change in the school lunch program.”

You can't much improve the sentence by changing it to “affect a change”, although that would be grammatically correct. With either word, the sentence means that you are going to have some impact on a change.

Why would someone promise that? You can affect something—or have an effect on it—without actually doing more than flapping your gums. It's a promise, for instance, to sign a bill when hundreds of other people are finished doing the work.

None of that was what I wanted to write about today. I simply wanted to point out that “affect” acts as a verb. I you use it as a noun, change the first letter to an “e”. The only time you use affect as a noun is when you are writing in medical records or otherwise discussing someone's demeanor. If something “will affect” you, it will “have an effect” on you. That's it.

(Let's be honest, an altogether better sentence would be, “I will improve the school lunch program.” Change does not specify an improvement or a significant alteration. A better promise would sound more like, “I promise that bloggers will never pay taxes again,” or at least, “I will create a new Department of Grammar and appoint legbamel as the Secretary of Grammar.”)