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| Pronoun clarity affected by Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It. |
From Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, by Adams Hill:
Clarity is affected by choice of words.
Obscurity is often caused by the misuse of a pronoun.
Pronouns
1. Keep pronouns near their antecedents.
A: Down in Blankville there is a boarding school for young ladies. I don't think the young ladies are particularly bold, but one might imagine so from a story told me by one of its scholars.
B: Down in Blankville there is a boarding school for young ladies. I don't think the young ladies are particularly bold, but anybody might think so if he believed a story told by one of them.
"Them" in Sentence B is better than "its scholars" in Sentence A; for "them" refers to a word that is close by, whereas "its" refers to one that is far away.
2. The reader should be able to effortlessly make the connection between a pronoun and its antecedent.
A: After he had wandered several days, carving love-messages on the trees, to the daughter of the banished duke, Adam became so feeble that Orlando was obliged to leave him and go in search of help.
B: After Orlando had wandered several days, carving on the trees love-messages to the daughter of the banished duke, he was obliged to leave Adam and go in search of help; for the old man had become very feeble.
Sentence A would lead a reader who was not familiar with As You Like It to suppose that the man who carved love-messages on the trees was Adam, not Orlando.
A: "The Fountain" describes a meeting of friends at its edge and their talk about it.
B: "The Fountain" describes a meeting of friends at a fountain, and repeats their talk about it.
Sentence A loses clarity because "its" and "it" refer grammatically to the title of Wordsworth's poem, rather than really to the fountain itself.
A: I was frightened at my soap opera-watching propensities, and resolved not to watch one for a for a year.
B: I was so much frightened by my soap opera-watching propensities that I resolved not to watch a soap opera for a year.
In Sentence A, the pronoun "one" refers to propensities rather than soap operas — an offense against clearness as well as against correctness.
3. A relative pronoun should point immediately and unmistakably to its antecedent.
A: When the ceremonies were over, General Harrison and Governor Hovey were loudly cheered, which was renewed as they left the Opera House.
B: After the ceremonies were over, General Harrison and Governor Hovey were loudly cheered,— a demonstration which was renewed as they left the Opera House.
In Sentence A, "which" refers to a noun implied in "were loudly cheered"; the insertion of the words "a demonstration" makes the meaning much clearer. When the antecedent consists of several words, clearness may require that it should be followed by a word or a short phrase in which the meaning of what precedes is summed up; when the antecedent is so far off as to be obscure, it should be repeated.
Sometimes it may be better not to use any pronoun, but to repeat the noun.
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