Pronoun Abuse

 

Flag Day in Venice, FL, a little city that truly appreciates the meaning of June 14. 

 

Venice, FL - June 14, 2026

Also from Venice, a storm surge pole measuring how high the water came with two very nasty and memorable hurricanes, Helene and Milton. (Why pics from Venice? I spent my first 25 years in Florida in Venice, an absolutely delightful mini-city on the Gulf of Mexico.)

 

 Talk about Punctuation/Composition problems . . .

From Facebook, no attribution 

 

A Michael Boor photo, posted to FB by Mary Balogh

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PRONOUN ABUSE 

Let me state up front:  this is likely a useless cause. But as someone who learned proper English from teachers who really knew their stuff, I feel I have to point out the constant pronoun errors I am finding in so many books, particularly books written in the last decade.

I'm talking about "he, she, they" becoming "him, her, them," which is only a slight step up from "dese, dose, dem."

Below are examples of what I mean, followed by the correct English.

. . . more time on her hands than me.

. . . more time on her hands than I have.

 

. . . the same hunch as me.

. . . the same hunch as I have. Or "the same hunch I have."

 

I'm smarter than him.

I'm smarter than he is.

 

I want to eat ice cream like them.

I want to eat ice cream like they are. 

I want to eat ice cream like they're doing. 

Below, an example copied from this week's local TV news. A good example of why the "wrong" pronouns are taking over. Often, they're faster, simpler. "Not surprisingly, it's he" just doesn't work well. Below, see a better way to express that sentence's intention. A sentence I consider much stronger, by the way.

Not surprisingly, it's him.

Not surprisingly, he's the one. 

Special Note:  I hasten to admit that if you're writing a novel set in the contemporary U.S., proper pronoun use could come across as "stilted." Horrible but true.

BUT . . .

If you are writing an historical novel—Medieval, Renaissance, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, the Twentieth century.—and you use modern "abused" pronouns, for shame! I know it would knock me right out of the story. It's just wrong, wrong, wrong! Educated people of those periods did not mangle their pronouns. Yes, there's a certain "slang" or "cant" for each period, and only diligent research will give you that. But modern-day misused pronouns, no way, no how. You just can't do that and hope for credibility with serious readers—the ones you hope will keep buying every book you write. (And, yes, I've seen examples of wrongly used "him, her, and them" in recently written historical novels.)

 

Book of the Week

Way back at the beginning of my writing career, I wrote two Contemporary romances. This one was for Kensington. (Published as He Said, She Said, a title I hated. For some reason the marketing department didn't think "risk" would play well in the hinterland.) I changed back to the original title when I got my rights back and published it to Kindle many years later.)  The setting is the Cape Cod I knew - living there for a year at age four and returning every summer for umpteen years after.      

 Following a tough trial, all defense attorney Vicki Kent wants is a few days of peace and quiet at her parents' cottage on Cape Cod. Instead, she finds a man challenging her with a 9mm in his hand. John Paollilo is an angry, burned-out homicide detective from New Haven, exiled by his boss to an enforced vacation on the Cape. Needless to say, conflicts abound—from a clash of professional viewpoints to the odoriferous retaliations of a family of skunks—as Vicki and John reluctantly share the cottage, exploring the Cape and each other, and in the end discovering that opposites really do attract.

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