ohmyrichard
Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2008
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- Chinese
- Home Country
- China
- Current Location
- China
Dear teachers,
Please help me with this language issue of preventing unnecessary shifts in person in the sentence. This morning I read in the 2013 Caine Prize winning short story by Tope Folarin, "Miracle", a two-sentence paragraph, which goes, "Some of us raise our hands and praise the Father. A few of us bow our heads, a few of us begin to weep with happiness. " This sentence reminded me of the issue of pronoun reference and I remembered that in English we often say "Some of us raise their hands...", but the author Tope Folarin is a native speaker of English and then I started to doubt my memory. Right afterwards I did some research online and I found that it is very easy to get from webpages sentences like "Some of us actually got to spend their vacations in a little more special way than others." and that it is also easy to get sentences like "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." However, these two search results got me confused. Is it that both "our"/ "we" and "their"/"they" can be used to refer back to the subject of "Some of us" or "A few of us"? Then how about when the subject is "All of us"?
Besides, this sentence in "Miracle" right now makes me think of the example sentence in my Basic English Writing coursebook compiled by two Chinese experts of "Those who want to join the chorus should sign your name on this sheet of paper." This part of the coursebook is talking about unnecessary or confusing shifts in person or number in the sentence and the user of the coursebook is advised to change "your name" to "their names". But I doubt whether the sentence of "Those who want to join the chorus should sign your name on this sheet of paper." is 100 % correct and it is what native speakers of English actually use in their daily life or whether it is also correct to change "your name" to "your names".
Please help me with the aforementioned three sentences (the former being a paragraph of two sentences) in terms of preventing unnecessary or confusing shifts in person in the sentence. Thanks a lot.
Richard
Please help me with this language issue of preventing unnecessary shifts in person in the sentence. This morning I read in the 2013 Caine Prize winning short story by Tope Folarin, "Miracle", a two-sentence paragraph, which goes, "Some of us raise our hands and praise the Father. A few of us bow our heads, a few of us begin to weep with happiness. " This sentence reminded me of the issue of pronoun reference and I remembered that in English we often say "Some of us raise their hands...", but the author Tope Folarin is a native speaker of English and then I started to doubt my memory. Right afterwards I did some research online and I found that it is very easy to get from webpages sentences like "Some of us actually got to spend their vacations in a little more special way than others." and that it is also easy to get sentences like "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." However, these two search results got me confused. Is it that both "our"/ "we" and "their"/"they" can be used to refer back to the subject of "Some of us" or "A few of us"? Then how about when the subject is "All of us"?
Besides, this sentence in "Miracle" right now makes me think of the example sentence in my Basic English Writing coursebook compiled by two Chinese experts of "Those who want to join the chorus should sign your name on this sheet of paper." This part of the coursebook is talking about unnecessary or confusing shifts in person or number in the sentence and the user of the coursebook is advised to change "your name" to "their names". But I doubt whether the sentence of "Those who want to join the chorus should sign your name on this sheet of paper." is 100 % correct and it is what native speakers of English actually use in their daily life or whether it is also correct to change "your name" to "your names".
Please help me with the aforementioned three sentences (the former being a paragraph of two sentences) in terms of preventing unnecessary or confusing shifts in person in the sentence. Thanks a lot.
Richard
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