RE: pronouns and portfolios--bringing it back tech writing

Subject: RE: pronouns and portfolios--bringing it back tech writing
From: "Brian Hoskins" <bhoskins -at- oz -dot- quest -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:21:44 +1000

Bonnie wrote

<<It's not the singular verb that I think
people here are talking about. It's the
pronoun agreeing in number with its
antecedent.>>

I trust you are happy to correct the following sentences:

"And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame,
They wol come up..."
(Chaucer - The Pardoner's Prolong. c1395)

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend"
(Shakespeare - Comedy of Errors. 1593)

"'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech."
(Shakespeare - Hamlet. 1601)

"No man goes to battle to be killed. - But they do get killed."
(George Bernard Shaw - Three Plays for Puritans. 1901)

".....every man went to their lodging."
(Lord Berners translation of Froissart's Chronicles. 1523)

I thank Webster's Dictionary of English Usage from which I derived these
excellent quotes.

The use of "They/their/them" to refer to a singular object has been common
in English for 600 or more years. The grammatical derision of this usage is
only 200 years old. We lost "Thou/thee/ye" for social reasons and we are
likely to loose "he/she" for the same reasons.

And so we introduce "then".

<<Happily, I've converted my colleagues on
this issue and on the issue of not using
"then" as anything but what it is -- an
adverb.>>

<< "Enter a name and an address, then click OK." >>


While I agree that it is incorrect to use "then" as a conjunction which your
example implies to be the problem, don't forget that it is used as both an
adjective and a noun.

"...Reagan, the then Governor of California..."
(Jess Nierenberg - Maledicta. 1983)

"Goodbye, until then" or "Then and there".

Regards

Brian


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Brian Hoskins
Senior Technical Writer
Quest Software http: //www.quests.com
2/293 Camberwell Rd, Camberwell 3124
Phone: +61 3 9811 8061 Fax: +61 3 9811 8099

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