Third-person pronoun

“ We do not consider a man egotistical, if he will only give himself a feigned name, and write of his experiences in the third person. But if he uses the personal pronoun, he is thought to be shameless. There are even people who consider it more decent to say "one feels and one thinks," than to say "I feel and I think." The thing that I most desire, in intercourse with other men and women, is that they should talk frankly of themselves, their hopes and fears, their beliefs and uncertainties. ”

“ The personal pronoun distinguishes three persons, see Illustration 3: The first person is the self of the speaking subject; the second person is the speaking subject addressed; the third person is the person neither originating the speech nor directly addressed. ”

“ Prichard, pronouns confused with the verb. It is an interesting fact, that “Amo”153 is actually used as the separate pronoun of the third person “He” in the dialect of the “Blackfeet,” one of the N. American Indian Tribes to the west of the Mississippi visited by Mr. Catlin! Now, as all pronouns were originally154 nouns, names for a “Human Being,” (see p. 13,) words of this class must have been in the first instance applied indifferently to all the three Persons. ”

“ Did your father bring the boat to Harry? No, he brought it to —— of us.
7. —— of them did his (their) duty.
Change of Pronoun. [60] —In referring to the same person or thing a writer should not change from one pronoun to another.
The possessive of "one" is "one's" (not "his") , except in such expressions as "every one," "no one," "many a one." The reflexive is "one's self."
It is a common but serious fault to begin to write in the third person, and then to change to the first or second. ”

“ But “man” is sufficiently generic to include all mankind, and the fact of its being masculine in gender, and demanding a masculine pronoun, need not be considered an insuperable objection to its use in the inclusive sense. All readers would know that the mere matter of general expression did not exclude women and children from business dealings. Changing “man” to “person,” though, still leaves the masculine pronoun good, for grammar demands agreement in number, and it has been custom from time immemorial to use in such cases the word that denotes the supposedly stronger sex. ”

“ The first personal pronoun is ever on his lips and in his thought. Only as culture arises and he is trained to see how disagreeable in others is excessive emphasis on the first person, does he learn to moderate his own excessive egoistic tendency. ”

“ The relative is not varied on account of gender, person, or number, like a personal pronoun. When we use a personal pronoun, in speaking of a man, we say he, and of a woman, she; in speaking of one person or thing, we use a singular pronoun, of more than one, a plural, and so on ”

“ It is never right to use a singular noun and a plural pronoun, or any other disagreement in number. It seems advisable in a case like that of the question here to say “About one man in85 ten,” etc., because it is a business matter, and presumably men are principally concerned. However, if generalizing by the noun “person” is preferred, that need not lead to the real grammatical error of using a plural pronoun. Of course a person may not be masculine, and that is why so many people make the error in number—to avoid supposed conflict in gender. ”

“ When it is imperative to write in the third person, it is most desirable to construct each sentence with care and with due regard to an extravagant use of pronouns, and never at any time to resort to the vulgar expedient of attempting a sort of compromise by making the initial letter of the writer, and of the person written to, do duty for their respective surnames. ”

“ Under the new civilization and in contact with foreign peoples who can hardly utter a sentence without a personal pronoun, the majority of the old quasi personal pronouns are dropping out of use, while those in continued use are fast rising to the position of full-fledged personal pronouns. This, however, is not due to the development of self-consciousness on the part of the people, but only to the development of the language in the direction of complete and concise expression of thought. ”

“ We shall betray no confidence; and should we be compelled to speak somewhat more in the first person, and of ourselves, than may seem quite accordant with good taste, our readers will, we trust, suffer us to remind them that we do not commit the fault very often, or very offensively, and that the present employment of the personal pronoun, just a little modified by the editorial we, seems inevitably incident to the special line of statement on which we propose to enter. ”

“ Relative pronouns agree with their antecedents, in gender, person, and number; as, "Thou who lovest wisdom;" "I who speak from experience."
NOTE. When a relative pronoun is preceded by two antecedents of different persons, the relative and the verb may agree in person with either, but not without regard to the sense; as, "I am the man who command you;" or, "I am the man who commands you." The meaning of the first of these examples will more obviously appear, if we render it thus: "I who command you, am the man." ”

“ The answer, it must be granted, commonly contains a noun, corresponding in some respects to the interrogative pronoun, and agreeing with it in case; but this noun cannot be supposed to control the interrogation, nor is it, in any sense, the word for which the pronoun stands. For every pronoun must needs stand for something that is uttered or conceived by the same speaker; nor can any question be answered, until its meaning is understood. Interrogative pronouns must therefore be explained as direct substitutes for such other terms as one might use in stead of them. Thus who means what person? ”

“ PERSONS The pronoun of the FIRST person is ob, I; plural, obs, we.
When the verb is in the first person the pronoun is united with it as a person ending, forming one word. Binob, I am;
pükob, I speak; kömobs, we come; golobs, we go.
The pronoun of the SECOND person is ol, thou or you (singular) ; ols, you, plural. ”

“ In truth, if this theory is unable to explain the facts it recognizes, much less can it account for those it ignores.
To interpret correctly the phenomena we are considering, we must ask ourselves how personal pronouns have arisen in other languages. Did the primitive Occidental man produce them outright from the moment that he discovered himself? Far from it. There are abundant reasons for believing that every personal pronoun is a degenerate or, if you prefer, a developed noun. ”

“ Our language can never entirely drop the pronoun thou, and its derivatives, thy, thine, thee, thyself, without great injury, especially to its poetry. Nor can the distinct syllabic utterance of the termination ed be now generally practised, except in solemn prose. It is therefore better, not to insist on those old verbal forms against which there are so many objections, than to exclude the pronoun of the second person singular from all such usage, whether familiar or poetical, as will not admit them. It is true that on most occasions you may be substituted for thou, without much inconvenience ”

“ When a noun is used which may refer indifferently to both sexes, the accepted practice is to use the masculine pronoun. For example, say: Let the teacher do his duty and he need not fear criticism, not Let the teacher do his or her duty and he or she need not fear criticism.
Similarly after indefinite singulars like each, every, somebody, anybody, use the masculine singular pronoun. Thus, Everyone should do his duty and he should do it every day. Here one is not only to avoid the use of he or she and his or her, but also particularly and constantly to be on guard against they and their. ”

“ They hear people calling them by their own names in the third person, and not having any notion of themselves, not having realized their own personality, they have nothing else for it than to adhere, in this case too, to their old principle of imitation, and to do towards themselves just what others do towards them; that is to say, when speaking of themselves they are unavoidably forced to designate themselves by a word in the third person ”

“ The pronouns their and they should be singular.
“Everybody has something to say which they think is worthy of being heard.” Everybody refers to persons singly, and not collectively. They think should be he thinks, he being the proper pronoun to employ when the gender is not indicated. ”

“ Personal Pronouns admit of person, number, gender, and case.
Pronouns have three persons in each number.
⁠In the Singular;
I, is the first person.
Thou, is the second person.
He, she, or it, is the third person.
⁠In the plural;
We, is the first person.
Ye or you, is the second person.
They, is the third person.
This account of persons will be very intelligible when the following Pastoral Fragment is reflected on:
HE.
I love thee, Susan, on my life:
Thou art the maiden for a wife.
He who lives single is an ass;
She who ne'er weds a luckless lass. ”

“ Pronouns Referring to Ideas.—Probably the most prolific cause of bad grammar and of obscurity of meaning in news writing may be found in the use of unclear pronouns. One or more instances may be found in almost every paper a reader examines. A reporter should assure himself that every pronoun he uses refers to a particular word in the sentence and that it agrees with that word in gender and number. The use of a pronoun to refer to a general idea not expressed in a particular word is one of the commonest causes of ambiguity and obscurity in newspaper work. ”

“ We beg to inform thee, that the third person plural has no distinction of gender.
SECTION II.
OF THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS.
The Pronouns called Relative are such as relate, for the most part, to some word or phrase, called the antecedent, on account of its going before: they are, who, which, and that: as, "The man who does not drink enough when he can get it, is a fool: but he that drinks too much is a beast." ”