Jan 14 2009
A Writing Rule That Drives Me Crazy – Please Help!
After decades of writing professionally, some issues still make me want to kick holes in my office wall. Maybe you can help me with one of them. Read the following sentence, which I pulled directly out of last Friday’s post.
… when writers should quit writing for the day and what they should do when they put down their pen or take their fingers off the keyboard.
I underlined “pen” and “keyboard” because that is where the problem rears its ugly head. When I first wrote that post, I wrote it like this:
… when writers should quit writing for the day and what they should do when they put down their pens or take their fingers off the keyboards.
But I revised what I wrote and made the two words singular: “pen” and “keyboard.”
Was I right? Should I be praised? Or should I be tied to the back of a truck and dragged through sagebrush?
The quandary, as you may have guessed, is that from a strictly technical standpoint, I should have used the plural “pens” and “keyboards,” because I was talking about writers – not a single writer – and a bunch of writers aren’t going to be sharing a single pen or keyboard.
But then again, when I used the plural form of those words, it made me envision a single writer putting down several pens and taking his or her fingers off multiple keyboards. Do you see what I’m saying?
Sure, I could have solved the problem by changing the plural “writers” to a singular “writer.” Here’s how that would have looked:
… when a writer should quit writing for the day and what he or she should do when he or she puts down his or her pen or takes his or her fingers off the keyboard.
But that would have created another issue – namely, the drudgery of reading so many he-and-she’s and his-and-her’s would have driven you crazy, which is something I try to avoid.
I like to offer sound, conclusive advice on writing in this blog, but this time I’m stumped and I’m asking for your advice. What do you think? Which way would you have taken this, and why?
Help!
I prefer the “pens” and “keyboards” to the singular versions. I think the sentence reads better to me; it just feels right. I started, however, with the word prefer because sometimes writing is less about the specific rules and more about the feel. It is art as much as science.
I would just write it like this:
… when a writer should quit writing for the day and what he should do when she puts down his pen or takes her fingers off the keyboard.
That way you satisfy both him and her and you confuse everyone else. Who did what? and why?
I think you were right to take it the way you did. If you had used the plural pens and keyboards option, it would have sounded clunky and awkward. Whereas the singular he/she filled sentence wouldn’t flow, hence would have needed to be re-read several times to extract the meaning.
In the end, the mixed plural/singular option wins it for me. It may not be correct grammatically but it makes most sense to our flawed brains! There are times when rules need to be broken! ;0)
Thanks for your suggestions. I especially like the idea of “confusing everyone else.” Good idea, Brian. Anyone else want to weigh in?
What about ing- form?
… when a writer should quit writing for the day and what he or she should do after putting down the pen or taking the fingers off the keyboard.
It is a little heavy, but the problem is solved.
I like the sentence with plural writers, and the singular nouns, personally. If I wanted to be perfectly correct, though, I’d just use singular writers and ‘he’ as the pronoun. I know it’s not politically correct, but sometimes I feel like we all get so wrapped up in being politically correct we trip all over ourselves. (See the his-or-her sentence!) I’m a girl, and I think it’s perfectly acceptable to use he in a non-gender specific situation. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who wouldn’t agree with me, but I think the argument that using he is sexist is a little silly. I don’t care what pronouns people use — as long as no one treats me differently because of my genitalia!
i just came across this website today (April 20).
this is the version i started with:
when writers should quit writing for the day and what they should do when they put down their pen or take their fingers off the keyboard.
what about this?
when writers should quit writing for the day and what they should do when they put down *the* pen or take their fingers off the keyboard. (of the group of writers, each writer left to his/her own end.)
i love your website!
i’d go with “pen” and “keyboard” in the singular, but i would not have changed the “their” to “his or her” and - well, here’s what i mean:
‘…when a writer should quit writing for the day and what they should do when they put down their pen or take their fingers off the keyboard.’
p.s. love this website!!!
Whatever you do is going to leave you wondering and is going to have readers wondering about your grammar and diction rather than about the point you are trying to make.
There is only one thing to do in a situation like this: Scrap the whole sentence. Start all over again.
My general rule: When in doubt, strike it out.