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Originally Posted by Tristan Lall
The singular use of they is a somewhat reasonable way of expressing concepts that would otherwise be clumsy. English lacks a gender-indeterminate or -neutral singular pronoun that can refer to a specific subject ( one doesn't work when the subject is identified). Granted, in the above example, one could have substituted "it" if one* didn't mind forgoing the implied personification of the "inner editor"; otherwise, the canonical way to express that would have been to employ "he or she", or to imply a particular gender (both of which could potentially distort the intended meaning).
*See how clumsy "one" can be, despite the sentence being conditional? |
Precisely.
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Originally Posted by Molten
Yes, I admit to grammatical errors. I tend to take the stance that I will write as I speak. I make sure I don't do anything too horrendous, but my sentences do get quite long sometimes. I tend to avoid breaking these sentences into several, instead I add () and ... to attempt to create some coherency. If my posts are ever less then clear, please ask for refinement. I will almost always oblige.
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This is exactly what I do. I try to write in a somewhat-professional manner, but I've found, by way of my journalism class, is that writing in a 100% professional manner makes whoever is trying to read your post/story/summary very bored, likely to skip over most of it, or just ignore it all together. My goal has been to not write anything that I wouldn't say in a normal conversation - it keeps things simple, interesting, and easy to read. I'm not going to make a speech about a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. I've been pretty good about it, and I feel like it makes me feel more mature.
(I also use (), ..., and emotes A LOT...it helps convey the sarcasm, hand gestures, and facial expressions that I would use if I were talking to someone face-to-face)