Unclear Pronoun Antecedents:
Note in the following sentence how
unclear pronouns might refer to more than one antecedent,
leaving the reader unsure of the writer's intended meaning.
Lizzy told her mother that her
sweater had a hole in it.
In this red sentence above, who has
the hole in her sweater? Is it Lizzy? Or her mother? The
reader might become confused. The rule of thumb is that
the pronoun refers to the the closest antecedent, in this
case, the word mother.
If the writer intends to indicate that Lizzy
is the one whose sweater is ragged, the sentence needs rewriting.
Lizzy told her mother, "My
sweater has a hole in it."
Or, if the writer intends the opposite
meaning, she might write this version:
Lizzy told her mother, "Your
sweater has a hole in it."
Unclear pronouns are particularly
dangerous with the pronoun it.
The best way to fix the problem is
to rephrase the sentence in a new way. However, if there
is more than one possible antecedent, the result is ambiguous.
When Alexander drove the car through
the garage door, he badly damaged it.
Did Alexander damage badly his car?
Or the garage door?
Cathy was surprised she had been
voted president by her classmates who never had much self-confidence.
Was Cathy surprised her classmates
all voted for her because she herself had little self-confidence?
Or was Cathy surprised because her classmates voted for
her, even though they never had much self-confidence?
The convention is that such pronouns
refer to the closest noun or pronoun. One way to cure this
problem is to move the who-clause so that is closer to what
it modifies. For example, we might rewrite the sentence
with Cathy this way:
Cathy, who never had much self-confidence,
was surprised she had been voted president by her classmates.
Or, if we wish to emphasize that
the classmates are the ones lacking confidence, we could
try this way:
Cathy was surprised she had been
voted president by her classmates since they never had
much self-confidence.
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earlier pronoun usage page.
