Pronouns

“None of them work.”

Common English Blunders, Number, Pronouns, Verbs

I saw a hilarious TV clip about why this is wrong.

Problem:
The number of the verb does not match the number of the subject.

Explanation:
The pronoun “none” means not one.

The pronoun “one” is singular and takes the third-person, singular form of “work”, which is “works”.

Seeing this, we get “Not one of them works.”

Converting “Not one” back to “None” gives us the solution.

I believe that the problematic sentence is an example of speakers and writers being distracted by the nearness of the verb to the pronoun “them”, which is plural.

Solution:
“None of them works.”

“Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon: …”

Pronouns

I heard this during an excellent performance of Othello over the weekend.

Problem:
I’m not sure about William Shakespeare’s time, but “myself” by today’s standard is not the right pronoun for this sentence.

Explanation:
At the risk of treading sacred ground, I must say that I had to wince when I heard “myself will be your surgeon” in the Alley Theatre’s excellent production of Shakespeare’s Othello over the weekend.

I’m not blaming the Alley production company. According to Scribd, the actor who played the part of Othello — David Rainey — said it exactly according to the script.

Perhaps Shakespeare wrote this line as shorthand for “Sir, for your hurts, I myself will be your surgeon: …” and simply left out the nominative singular pronoun “I” because it was the style of the time.

It’s correct to follow “I” with “myself” when one wants to emphasize the “I” (ditto for “you” followed by “yourself”, “he” followed by “himself”, etc.).

In other words, one can emphasize a nominative pronoun by immediately following it with its counterpart reflexive pronoun (e.g., “I myself” or “he himself”).

However, it’s incorrect to use a reflexive pronoun as a substitute for its counterpart nominative pronoun.

Solution:
“Sir, for your hurts, I will be your surgeon.” or “Sir, for your hurts, I myself will be your surgeon.”

“They” vs. “He” or “She”

Common English Blunders, Pronouns, Versus

Huge numbers of people use “they” when they should use “he” or “she” instead.

Problem:
The pronoun “they” is not a synonym for the pronouns “he” or “she”.

Explanation:
The pronoun “they” is a plural, third-person pronoun. For example: When the customers called, they complained about having to press several buttons to speak to an agent.

The pronoun “he” is a singular, third-person, masculine pronoun. For example: When the customer called, he complained about having to press several buttons to speak to an agent.

The pronoun “she” is a singular, third-person, feminine pronoun. For example: When the customer called, she complained about having to press several buttons to speak to an agent.

Unfortunately, many people erroneously will use “they” as if it were a synonym for “he” or “she”: When the customer called, they complained about having to press several buttons to speak to an agent.

The problem with this approach is that “the customer” is singular whereas “they” — which refers to “the customer” — is plural.

There are four possible solutions to this problem, which arises when the speaker or writer does not know the sex of the subject:

  1. Use “he” instead of “they”.
  2. Use “she” instead of “they”.
  3. Use “he or she” instead of “they”.
  4. Reword the sentence to avoid having to use a pronoun.

Some feminists object to solution #1, even though the use of “he” as a neuter pronoun was the standard in English (American and otherwise) for decades, if not centuries.

Others object to solution #2, even though some feminists see this as getting even for the long history of solution #1.

Still others object to solution #3. They see it as stilted or awkward, especially when several such sentences exist in a paragraph or set of paragraphs.

Solution #4 suffers from none of these objections, so this is the one that I recommend. For example: The calling customer complained about having to press several buttons to speak to an agent.

Solution:
Use “he” when one knows that the subject is male. Use “she” when one knows that the subject is female. Reword the sentence to avoid having to use a pronoun, when one does not know the subject’s sex.