The Indefinite Pronoun Problem

I came across a troublesome sentence as I was reading Secrets and Wives, a book about polygamy by Sanjiv Bhattacharya. The author is discussing Sister Wives, a TLC reality show about Cody Brown and his polygamous family:

When the Utah authorities threatened to charge Brown with bigamy after the show aired, it merely encouraged the cable network to book them for a second season.  AWKWARD

A copyeditor should have fixed that sentence. The problem is it, an ordinary word that can cause immense problems.

Let’s reread the sentence up to it merely encouraged. Notice what your brain is doing while you’re reading:

When the Utah authorities threatened to charge Brown with bigamy after the show aired, it merely encouraged

Here’s what I was thinking: The Utah authorities encouraged….

Wait a minute! The Utah authorities weren’t encouraging the Browns to prosecute polygamy. And Utah authorities is plural. You can’t refer to them as it. What’s going on here?

Backtracking to the beginning of the sentence, I started over, more slowly. Aha! It in this sentence is a vague word that doesn’t refer to anything–as if you said “It’s raining.”

Bad writing. You shouldn’t have to read a sentence twice to figure it out. And here’s a more important principle: A sentence should state who did what. In this sentence about the Browns, The Learning Channel decided to renew the show for a second season. Say so!

Here’s a better version of the sentence (notice that I’m using one of my favorite tricks for fixing awkward sentences: Make it two sentences).

The Utah authorities threatened to charge Brown with bigamy after Sister Wives aired. Instead of backing away from the controversy, The Learning Channel responded by renewing the show for a second season.  BETTER

Grammarians have a name for the problem we’re discussing: indefinite pronoun reference. Here’s a simple way to avoid the problem: Always make sure that it refers to something specific that you’ve already named.

(To learn more about using “it” in a sentence, click here.)

 

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