Nov 07 2008
Purge Your Writing of False Subjects
There is something wrong with each of the following sentences. Can you guess what it is?
Before I tell you what’s wrong with the four sentences, let’s look at a better way to write those same sentences. Doing so will help you understand where I’m going with this.
Have you figured it out yet? The problem with the first four sentences is that they all have false subjects. False subjects are words like “they” or “it” that are basically abstractions. They don’t refer to anything real. They often lurk at the beginning of sentences, where they take the place of true subjects. If you can get rid of them, you can typically make the sentences shorter and simpler, cutting right to the chase.
For example, the first sentence says “it” is a strategy. But really, what is the “it” it refers to? It can’t be “the strategy,” because then we’d be saying, “The strategy is the strategy that could blow up in our faces.” And if we said that, as P.G. Wodehouse would declare, “What silly asses we’d all look.”
Okay, all that’s a bit convoluted. If you drink coffee, now might be a good time to have a cup.
I am often guilty of using false subjects. You might have noticed that my lead sentence in this article uses one. I should have written, “Something is wrong with each of these sentences.”
I’d like to say I did this for illustrative purposes. But I didn’t. That’s the way it rolled off my fingertips. My bad.
One final note: Sometimes false subjects are unavoidable, as they are in the following sentences:
It would be difficult indeed to replace the false subjects (“it”) in those two sentences with true subjects. After all, what is snowing, and what is noon? Please don’t spend too much time trying to answer those questions, or you’ll have to replace that cup of coffee with a couple of stiff ones to calm your nerves.
Don’t get too uptight about this rule, but do pay attention to it when you write. Your writing will be more concise and direct if you do.
Remember: Writers, like kings, should beware of false subjects.
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I’ve been noticing this in my own writing lately. Nice to know the name.
While I don’t worry about “It is snowing”. I do take notice and try to find a better way to say the same thing. Often I end up with results slightly more pleasing and not significantly more convoluted.
Something as innocuous as “Snow fell.” can be more satisfying than trying to figure out where the antecedent went to.
I fall into this trap all too often. I’m gradually becoming sensitized to them; maybe it’s because they do something nasty to the flow. Whatever it is, I’m learning to weed them out. Didn’t know there was a name for it. I have trouble remembering rules, and depend on my ears to tell me when something’s amiss.
I have a feeling that “false subjects” are one of those phenomena that appear more and are more acceptable in British English than in US English, am I right?
I’m not sure about the British angle, Judi. Can anyone answer that?