Misuse of Pronouns

We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

On Forensic Fridays, we dissect the English language to see what it’s made of and how to use it properly. Today we’re going to discuss consistency in the person of pronouns we use.

To remind us of another of those classes we may have slept through in school, person identifies who is the subject, object or predicate nominative. First person is I or we. Second person is you. Third person is he, she or they. At least, those are the nominative case pronouns, used for subjects and predicate nominatives. Those used for objects of verbs or prepositions are me and us for first person, you for second person, and him, her or them for third person. I hope this all rings at least a vague bell.

The other day I came across the statement “When I’m having a bad day on the field, you just have to buckle down and try harder.” Did this athlete really mean to say that when he’s having a tough time you and I need to buckle down? Of course not. He meant to say “I have to buckle down.” I don’t know why he didn’t say what he meant, but I do know that I hear such statements very commonly.

Since the example mentioned above comes from a statement by an football player being interviewed, I’d like to be able to say this type of mistake is caused by the pressure of being interviewed in the heat of the moment after a game is over. I’d like to say that, but, unfortunately, I can’t. This type of error is much more ubiquitous than that. I think I’ve even caught it a time or two in blogs, although I’m sure it was not yours.

Using you as sort of a universal word to include all of us is pretty common, and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with it. Statements like, “When you’re up to your elbows in alligators, it’s hard to remember your objective is to drain the swamp,” are very expressive, and we all understand them. No problem there. Just don’t say, “When I’m up to my elbows in alligators, it’s hard to remember your objective is to drain the swamp.” Now we don’t know who was supposed to drain the swamp.

To avoid making this particular mistake, we just need to think through our statement and be sure we have the same person in the conditional statement (when up to the elbows . . .) mentioned in the unconditional statement (remembering to drain the swamp).

What grammatical misuse bothers you? What particular area of grammar would you like help with? I’d love to hear and help.

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