Pronoun: Difference between revisions

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-{{pe}}Lawyers don’t like pronouns because they (pronouns, that is, not lawyers) tend to be short and idiomatic.
+{{a|drafting|{{image|Me myself I|jpg|Would the superb Ms. A.’s [[LinkedIn]] profile say “Joan Armatrading (Me/Myself/I)”? Trick question: Joan Armatrading wouldn’t ''have'' a [[LinkedIn]] profile.}}}}[[Legal eagle]]s distrust [[pronoun]]s because they (pronouns, that is, not [[legal eagle]]s) tend to be short and idiomatic.
-This unnecessarily lowers the bar. Much better is repeated use of the [[noun]]s to which they (the [[pronoun]]s, not the {{tag|noun}}s) might, if they were used, relate. It doesn't change the semantic content much less the legal freighting, but it makes the any text just that little bit less penetrable to those without a direct financial incentive in the job of reading it.
+Even [[legal eagle]]s of great experience, wisdom and status struggle: witness [[Lord Justice Waller]]’s travails in {{casenote|Lloyds Bank|Independent Insurance}}.
-The official excuse has probably something to do with imprecision: “you” and “it” can ambiguously refer to the {{tag|subject}} or {{tag|object}} of a sentence: unlike those ultra-precise Germans, we Englanders only half-heartedly [[declension|decline]] our [[pronoun]]s. For all that, the English language — complete with [[pronoun]]s — works unambiguously well in most other linguistic contexts. Besides, lawyers have their own special form of {{tag|pronoun}}: the {{tag|definition}}.
+Using them, they feel, infinitesimally lowers a bar that was put up for a reason: ''to keep [[muggle]]s out''. It is a small thing: abstention from pronouns doesn’t change the semantic content, much less its legal freighting, but it makes text just that little bit denser to those who do not have a direct financial incentive in reading it.
+The official excuse has something to do with imprecision: “you” and “it” may be the {{tag|subject}} ''or'' {{tag|object}} of a sentence: unlike those ultra-precise Germans, we Englanders only half-heartedly [[declension|decline]] our [[pronoun]]s.
+“[[We]],” in one of those ghastly interpersonal contracts that are set up like a conversation between friends and not the stiff passive account of a scientific experiment they should be, is [[definition|defined]] as the ''drafter'' of the contract (as opposed to “[[you]],” its recipient, but in idiomatic English, can refer to both of them together. How are we meant to know?
+But the English language, shot through as it may be with these and other ambiguities, has yet managed to hang on in the evolutionary arms race of linguistic models. It has done rather well, in fact, all things considered. ''Too'' well, some might say.
+There is an argument that [[Doubt|constructive ambiguity]] is no bad thing. Perhaps a “runniness at the edges” of one’s contractual commitments and rights might moderate one’s tendency to officiousness when policing one’s [[relationship agreement|commercial relationship]]s. Any that can encourage merchants away from the docs and towards ''calling'' the other guy has got to be a good thing.
+{{pronouns and gender}}
 {{sa}}
-*[[Chauvinist language]]
+*[[Sexist language]]
+{{Ref}}