Q. I am writing a thesis for my university and use the pronoun “we” instead of “I.”
For example, “From this, we can conclude that . . .” I personally think this looks
more scientific than using the “I” pronoun. However, a colleague of mine states
that if I am the only one writing the thesis and doing the research, I should use “I,”
because otherwise readers might wonder who else wrote the document. Do you know which one is better to use in my case?
A. “We” used to be more common in scholarly writing than it is now. The British
use it more than Americans do. CMOS recommends using “I,” but if the literature in your field avoids this, you should
follow suit. Either way, it’s fine to use “we” when referring
to something that author and readers are implicitly doing together, as in your example.
Q. Could you please give a definitive answer to the “its” versus “it’s”
issue? I just came back from a writing conference, and the advice we received was contradictory to everything I was taught
previously, as well as contradictory to what I can find online on college websites. Most writer’s websites
that I’ve checked out are claiming that the ONLY time “its”
is written as “it’s” would be when the meaning is “it
is.” What happened to possessive nouns?
A. True, this can be confusing, but the possessive “its” is an exception to the
rule that possessives have apostrophes. Possessive pronouns lack apostrophes: her glove, my glove, your glove, its glove. Remembering that “its” is a possessive pronoun should help.
Q. Hi. My question is about the use of “you” versus “your”
in a participial phrase. Which is correct: “I appreciate you helping keep the house clean”
or “I appreciate your helping keep the house clean”? A little ghost from grade-school
grammar tells me it is the latter, but I can’t find anything in CMOS that addresses this (although I’m sure it’s there and I’ve
simply missed it).
A. Your little ghost is right: “your” is the better choice here. CMOS 7.26 discusses the possessive followed by a gerund.
Q. This is from today’s op-ed column in the Washington Post: “Two top fundraisers for Newt Gingrich quit Tuesday. . . .
Neither Thomas nor Heitman returned an e-mail seeking comment on their departure.” Should that pronoun
be plural, really?
A. If the departure was a joint one, then “their” is apt; if the departures were
individual and unrelated, “his departure” is Chicago’s preferred
phrasing. Although the use of “their” in place of a singular pronoun has been
discussed endlessly in online forums, and many language experts have accepted it as standard usage, CMOS still considers it to be informal (see CMOS 5.227) and recommends against using it in formal writing. You can Google “their as singular”
and catch up on this conversation.
Q. Should she or it be used as a pronoun for a country?
A. Never use she to refer to a country. You’ll sound as if you either don’t know English or last
studied it in 1950.
Q. I’ve always thought that to avoid confusion a pronoun should rename the closest noun to it, but an
author says “the pronoun it is most naturally taken to repeat the subject of the sentence.” The pronoun in question renamed a noun
that immediately preceded it (not the subject). Is the author correct? Should it always refer to the subject rather than to the closest noun or pronoun?
A. “Always”? Of course not. Your author has in mind a sentence where it does not refer to the subject and we sense an awkward ambiguity: The money in the pool of blood reddened as it spread. But
it’s just as easy to write a perfectly clear sentence where it does not refer to the subject—or for that matter to the nearest noun: Did you see the eclipse last
night when it peaked? Both you and your author would do well to stop searching for a rule to govern all your sentences and
simply rephrase if it isn’t crystal clear what it refers to.
August Q&A
Q. I hope I’m not losing my mind. I’ve been told that “they” and “their” are used incorrectly in this sentence: “The telltale sign of a right-winger: they can’t write in English to save their lives.” I agree that it’s an awkward sentence, but is “they/their” used incorrectly? Thanks!
A. The use of they as a singular pronoun is a hot topic in online grammar forums. By traditional standards, the sentence is incorrect because it contains no plural noun for they to refer to. Traditionally, the correct versions are “The telltale sign of right-wingers: they can’t write in English to save their lives” and “The telltale sign of a right-winger: he can’t write in English to save his life.”
The growing acceptance of they as singular is in response to a need for a gender-neutral pronoun that avoids the use of he to mean he or she. Good writers would make right-winger plural to avoid the appearance of incorrectness or gender bias, but in other sentences the plural is not a good option: “Someone ate my Twinkie, and they’d better watch out!” In those contexts, many language experts now approve of the use of they. You can learn more by searching online for “singular they.”
Q. I would swear that I saw a reference in your manual that approved of the use of “their”
instead of a gender-biased singular pronoun. For example, “If the user has completed installing the
program, they should put the CD-ROM back in the package,” instead of “If the user
has completed installing the program, s/he should put the CD-ROM back in the package,” but on your Q&A,
you dance around the answer to the question and suggest that you do NOT approve of the singular “their.”
Can you tell us what is acceptable?
A. Yes, you saw it at 2.98 (note 9) in the fourteenth edition, but there was some regret at having written it, and we decided
to abandon the idea for the fifteenth and sixteenth editions. Though some writers are comfortable with the occasional use
of they as a singular pronoun, some are not, and it is better to do the necessary work to recast a sentence or, other options having
been exhausted, use he or she. For a fuller discussion of this issue, see paragraph 5.223 in CMOS 16 and the entry for “he or she” under the “Glossary of
Problematic Words and Phrases” at paragraph 5.220.
Q. PLEASE tell me what you are recommending when people need a gender-neutral singular possessive pronoun. In order to avoid
saying “his mind” or “her mind” (or,
God forbid, “his/her mind”) people are saying “their mind”—and
it blows MY mind—unless, of course, those people could be sure “they”
are “of one mind”! If you have a discussion on this issue, I’d
be most happy to receive it or be directed to it.
A. I’m afraid your gender-neutral pronoun (at least in the sense you need) does not exist in our lexicon.
I agree that the plural pronoun with a singular noun seems inadequate; I would suggest that you recast the sentence altogether
or at least make “mind” plural for agreement: their minds. Other writers alternate
between using “his” and “her” in such
constructions in order to give equal status to each pronoun.
Q. When referring to a zombie, should I use the relative pronoun who (which would refer to a person) or that (since, technically, the zombie is no longer living)? Essentially, does a zombie cease to become a “person” in the grammatical sense?
A. Let’s assume this is a serious question, in which case you, as the writer, get to decide just how much humanity (if any) and grammatical sense you wish to invest in said zombie. That will guide your choice of who or that.
Chicago Style Q&A: New Questions and Answers
