A Lesson in Antecedents

Pronouns can be so unclear sometimes. That's why this T-shirt is an essential part of a thoughtful writer's wardrobe. Buy it on Zazzle.

(SPOGG won't earn a penny from this. We just want people to remember to keep their antecedents--the stuff that comes before the pronouns--nice and clear. And by "stuff," we mean words, phrases, or clauses.)

Not Our Cup of Tea

Amy H. sends this paragraph from a company picnic invitation:

Tickets are available for purchase between now and Oct. 16 and will not be sold at the picnic. Anyone consuming food or beverages, including children, will need a ticket.

Much as we think tender, young children sound delicious, we are opposed to eating them, and even more opposed to drinking them. Unless, of course, someone has taken the time to strain all the lumps. (Oh, but we kid! We kid!)

Epitaph for Prepositional Pronouns

HERE LIES THEM
PREPOSITIONAL PRONOUNS
ABUSED AND MISUSED
BY WE AND BY I.
MAY HER OR HIM
REST IN PEACE,
FOR THEY US WILL
FOREVER CRY.
(BOO WHOM!)

By Charles H. Chernov

A Bachelor's Degree in Bad Writing

Karen sends this in, somewhat sheepishly:

First, I'm embarrassed that I clicked on the story about The Bachelor's "most shocking rose ceremony ever," but I did, and then I hit this:

Fast forward six weeks later to the After the Rose special, and Mesnick admits that the "chemistry is completely different," with he and Rycroft [we'd use a comma here, too] and [he] dumps her. Then, he asks initial reject Malaney out [we'd put the "out" after the "at"] and she accepts.

At a minimum, this should read "with him and Rycroft."

Is this just our own pet peeve, or does anyone else hate it when the term "chemistry" appears in connection with romance? We studied chemistry in high school. It was completely unromantic, often smelly, and occasionally led to fingertip burns. Let's come up with a new cliche after National Grammar Day, okay?

And Karen, you should never be embarrassed about enjoying pop culture. It's such a delicious diversion--and even more, a rich source of bad grammar for those of us who track such things.

IQ Test: Question No. 1

Dianne sends this in from Facebook:

4 Friends challenge you to the IQ QuizThe smartest scored 127. Find out who and if you can beat them!

You know, if we had a nickel for every funny bit of grammar on Facebook, we'd certainly make more than we do running SPOGG. Probably even ten cents more! Cha-ching!

But seriously. We know there are people out there who thinks it's fine and dandy to use "them" as a singular pronoun. We are not one of them, especially since this one would have been so easy to avoid.

4 Friends challenge you to the IQ Quiz. The smartest scored 127. Find out who and if you can beat the high score!

Speaking of Certain Death

Michael V. sends along this line from a story about Cuba's hurricane-evacuation policies:

And if anyone has doubts, authorities quickly put an end to them. The state news media often makes examples of people who fail to move out — and who are killed or injured.

We get how it would be annoying and all to have your citizens ignore sensible advice from the government. But is killing off scofflaws the way to proceed?

Of course, it's possible that authorities are putting an end to the doubts, and not the Cubans. You just can't tell, though, from the way these two sentences are written.

Oh, Barack

Yes, Barack Obama gives good speeches. His improv skills need a bit of improvement, though. This comes from the New York Times:

“If we have an E.M.T. in the house, I think somebody got faint,” he said calmly when a woman keeled over in front of the stage in Cincinnati. “They just need a little water and some juice.”

Unless this woman was a gender enigma like Pat from "Saturday Night Live," he should have said "she," not "they."

Somebody is a singular pronoun and needs to be paired with another singular pronoun. Sometimes, this is tough--particularly when you don't know the sex of the somebody in question.

There are also plenty of examples of great writers who've ignored this principle and use "their" as an all-purpose possessive pronoun. This doesn't make it right. For those of us who like a little precision with our speech and writing, keeping sentences parallel is the goal.

We don't love the "he or she" construction as a workaround. It's pretty darned stuffy. But this doesn't mean we shrug our shoulders and give up.

The better alternative is to use the plural when you really don't know the sex of the person in question. And when you do—let's say, when a woman has fainted at your glamorous feet—there's no need to further rob her of her dignity and neuter her.

Yahoo! That's Harsh

Xavier D. sent the text of the message Yahoo! sends its discussion group administrators when people ask to join.

Apparently, Yahoo! has software that automatically kills applicants if the group administrator doesn't intervene in two weeks. Either that, or they have the pronoun problem properly known as an ambiguous antecedent.

Here's their language:

Pending members require your approval. If you take no action, they will automatically expire after 14 days.

The "they" appears to apply to pending members, which makes us wonder what sort of automatic death might occur... sudden cardiac arrest? Futuristic disintegration? Total petrification?

Of course, they probably meant the requests would expire after 14 days. That would have been a good thing to write.

So Young to Be a Father, Even Younger to Fly

Holly B. sends this comical goof from the San Francisco Chronicle about Steve Fossett and other missing airplane pilots:

"William Ogle hopes some of the wreckage will be from the plane his father was flying when he vanished on a flight from Oakland, Calif., to Reno. He was only 5 at the time."