Fwd: RE: Fwd: Re: It is . . . . .

[Stuart Reynolds <stuartr -at- FIRSTGRAPHICS -dot- COM>]

-- [ From: Stuart Reynolds * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --


Subject: RE: Fwd: Re: It is . . . . .

re: it's raining.  I think the antecedent is an understood "the weather is
raining" - or even "the rain is raining" - see the general semantics crew
for anamaversions against the verb "to be" in stating identity... loads of
fun, makes much sense, and is much to much work for me...


 -b
 ----------

Date: Thursday, 10-Aug-95 09:11 AM

From: Scott McDaniel           \ Internet:    (mcdaniel -at- pioneer -dot- uspto -dot- gov)
To:   Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L \ Internet:    (techwr-l -at- osuvm1 -dot- 
bitnet)

Subject: Re: It is . . . . .

> Sherrill writes:

> >Never thought twice about the occasional use of It is . . . until I left
> >the group to work for another group at the same installation.  On my
first
> >day, I asked my boss (not a "writer" but pretty darn good with language)
> >what his pet peeves were.  Guess what--It is . . . topped the list!  He
> >says that you cannot always tell what the antecendent for "it" is
supposed
> >to be!  Same goes for "This is . . ." and other similar constructions.


> Sometimes "it is" is perfectly clear.  In these cases, no harm is done.  I
> prefer to use "this" as a demonstrative, but I occasionally use "this" as

> pronoun when I'm too lazy to reword what I've written.

> Bill Burns                            *



I've always wondered what the antecedent is in the sentence,

  "It's raining."


The sentence makes perfect sense, everyone knows what it means, and I can't
think of another way to say the same thing in half as many syllables.  Is
this use of "it" bad style or just an exception?

   Scott McD.

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