I’m departing this week from my theme of storytelling through literature and other media from a lawyer’s perspective to ask a favor of all readers: Please visit The Animal Rescue Site and vote for Friends Of Strays, a small animal shelter in Princeton, IL, as your favorite shelter. It only takes a few clicks and typing in the name of an animal from a photo (to verify that you’re a real person and not a voting bot). Costs nothing, you don’t have to register, and you won’t get a virus. You can vote once a day, and you certainly don’t have to live in Illinois, or even the US, to vote for Friends of Strays (in Princeton, IL, remember). This tiny and VERY deserving shelter was #7 in the state yesterday on the Animal Rescue Site’s voting stats. If just a few readers would vote daily, and tell friends to do the same, who knows what might happen–FOS might win a cash grant that would help it help more homeless pets! Every animal shelter is deserving, of course, but if you don’t already have a “pet” shelter, please vote for Friends of Strays!
March 9, 2011
May 18, 2010
October 30, 2009
Singular and plural
An AP article posted this week in the online edition of the Chicago Tribune at http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-tec-facebook-profiles,0,5187017.story , “Facebook keeps profiles of people who have died, though removes some features,” disturbed and disappointed me.
You’re right—the article’s header is awkward. But what REALLY bothered me was in the text of the article.
Here it is:
“… only the deceased person’s confirmed friends can find them in a search.”
PLEASE! Has the AP—or the Tribune—cast aside all grammatical standards? The word “them” refers to “person.” “Person” is singular. “Them,” therefore, is incorrect.
I know, I know. You speak this way. (Full disclosure: so do I.) Prose in newspapers and magazines, and even in some documents filed in court, has become increasingly informal, more like speech. I use an informal, spoken style myself for the articles I write for the Illinois Bar Journal. It makes articles easier to read for busy people who are short on time and, perhaps, attention span. So why is it not OK to write this way, too, and use “them,” or “they,” or “their,” to refer to one person?
Because it’s just WRONG, dammit.
This sentence should be revised to read
“…only the deceased person’s confirmed friends can find HIM OR HER in a search.”
Granted, “him or her” is clunky, using three words when you’d prefer one. So why didn’t the writer—or the editor—follow Rene J. Cappon’s suggestion in “The Word: An Associated Press Guide to Good News Writing,” by revising the sentence to put the whole business into the plural, like this:
“…only the deceased persons’ confirmed friends can find them in a search.”
Or the writer could have tightened it up even more by eliminating “persons’,” like this:
“…only the deceased’s confirmed friends can find them in a search.” (Note that the term “deceased,” when used as a noun, may refer either to a singular dead person or to a multitude of dead people.)
I shudder when I see this mistake in print, not only in some of what are supposed to be the finest publications in the country but also in court filings. (Facebook itself consistently uses plural pronouns to refer to its singular users.) Why on earth would any editor let a construction like this go to print? Didn’t the writer, or the editors through whose hands the original piece passed, know any better?
I’ve read that, far from being a novelty, recorded examples of this substandard construction go back to Chaucer. I know it’s inevitable for language and accepted style to change. I even agree that change is good—that’s how English as we know it not only came into existence but also became so colorful and expressive. But this is one change to reject.
May 15, 2009
Friday funny
Start your Friday off right by watching a two-minute video from The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/congressmans_son_wont_shut_the?utm_source=a-section You can subscribe to the video podcast free either there or in the iTunes store.
May 14, 2009
Trash talking
St. Louis area lawyer Evan Schaeffer has a good post on his Trial Practice Tips Weblog (one of my favorites) at http://www.illinoistrialpractice.com/2009/05/writing-for-the-court-control-your-outrage-and-scorn.html how snide or nasty remarks in briefs nearly always backfire, disposing the judge against you and your arguments (and, therefore, against your client as well) instead of helping the judge to see things your way.
Schaeffer gives credit to Philadelphia lawyer Maxwell Kennerly, who writes the Litigation & Trial weblog, at http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2009/04/articles/litigation/ideas/how-to-write-your-brief-so-that-the-judge-will-hate-you/ for his post; Kennerly, in turn, looked up the brief in question after reading an article in the (subscribers only, alas) Legal Intelligencer and thoughtfully posted it here http://www.scribd.com/doc/14293105/Rudovsky-v-West-Reply-to-Ptls-Motion-for-Injunction for all interested parties to read.
Lawyers should take both Kennerly’s and Schaeffer’s conclusions to heart. Says Kennerly: “An opening brief filled with sarcasm will perturb a judge doing his or her best to reserve judgment until they’ve heard both sides just as much as an opening statement filled with indignity will repulse a jury doing their best to be fair and impartial until they’ve heard all of the evidence.” For his part, Schaeffer comments “Kennerly’s post stands as a good reminder to all of us who write for judges–judges who are always more interested in the facts and the law than our own belly-aching about the other side.”
As an administrative law judge, I saw snide remarks in briefs and oral arguments more frequently than I would have liked, and can attest that Kennerly and Schaeffer are dead on in their conclusions. I’d add that what’s true in court holds in the rest of life as well.
