Is They Coming or Going?
The Cornell University Law School publishes the following overview of legal writing at Wex, “everyone’s resource for law learning.”
This is a problem we’ve considered before: the problem of the pronoun without sex. If we wanted to speak of an individual without reference to his or her gender, we could refer to that person as it. It is perfect! It’s sexless, and it’s singular. What could ever be better suited to the task?
But we just can’t do it. “People aren’t things,” we declare. “Heck, we’re not even animals, which is a completely different category of creatures. You can call dogs and cats its, but not people. The correct way to speak of people these days, is as they.“
And so we read about a lawyer who must do their best on their clients’ behalf. But that just don’t sound quite right.
Here’s how that copy might have been revised by an editor:
Writing is the main tool lawyers have for expressing their analyses of legal issues and for persuading courts to rule in favor of their clients. Hence, the most successful lawyers are masterful writers.
3 July 2007 at 8:00
I wanted to make one quick comment, or suggestion, about the rewritten sentence. Instead of writing “it is impertive that,” in the second senctence, why not write: “Given its great importance, law students must master the art of legal writing.” Isn’t the phrase “it is imperative that” unnecessary? And, what is the “it” referring to?
3 July 2007 at 8:59
You make a good point. The phrase, “it is imperative that” is a might formal; the structure is passive; your rewrite makes it active. But I think you’ve unraveled something.
In your rewrite, you’ve replaced “it is imperative that” with “must.” Obviously, a verb is essential. It could be a verbal phrase or a word, but it’s required.
While it’s often best to replace a lengthy phrase with one word, or a passive sentence with an active one, when it’s done with mechanical precision, it can leave the copy without flavor, and lacking in style.
Some variation in structure is like spice.
9 July 2007 at 8:35
Excellent points. I remember writers being very careful to alternate between “he” and “she” in an effort at fairness, and it read poorly.
I occasionally resort to using “his or her,” but I try not to use it too much. If the writing allows, perhaps it makes sense to switch back and forth between plural and sigular pronouns throughout the piece, in order to avoid constant use of the same device?