Be careful of it

By Oh Teik Theam
The Star Mind Our English, Wednesday 17 May 2006
An old blacksmith decided to stop working so hard. He chose a strong young man as his apprentice. The cantankerous and fastiduous old-timer said to the new guy, "Don't ask any questions. Just do whatever I tell you to do."
One afternoon the old fellow took an iron out of the forge and laid it on the anvil. "Get the sledgehammer over there," he ordered his apprentice. "When I nod my head, hit it with all your strength."
The town is now looking for a new blacksmith.
In the above joke, it is a simple personal pronoun (a direct substitute for a noun). The apprentice got the wrong idea of the antecedent (a word or phrase to which a pronoun refers). The blacksmith should have made his instruction clear: "When I nod my head, hit the iron with all your strength."
It is also the impersonal pronoun, with no antecedent (nothing to which it refers), for example: "It's sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along," sing England Dan and John Ford Coley. (Compare: To belong to someone else when the right one comes along is sad.) "It rains." (Compare: The rain rains.)
It as the impersonal pronoun can often be avoided to make for concise writing, e.g.: "It has come to my attention that someone in the office has been filing all my memos under the letter M." (I have learned that someone in the office has been filing all my memos under the letter M.)
"It is essential that those who murder short phrases be given long sentences." (Those who murder short phrases should be given long sentences.)
"It is significant to note that the coarsest language in any contract is invariably written in the finest print." (The coarsest language in any contract is invariably written in the finest print.)
"It is important to understand that love is a game that two can play and both win." (Love is a game that two can play and both win.)
It is to be hoped that he will stop sending get-well cards to hypochondriacs." (Let's hope that he will stop sending get-well cards to hypochondriacs.)


After reading the above article, I sent my comments (reproduced below) on May 22, 2006 to The Editor Editor of Mind our English who onward transmitted them to the Education Editor (under whose charge the said article was published); but no response was received.

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I read with interest the Article headlined "Be careful with it" in "MIND OUR ENGLISH" of May 17 and have the following to add.
We were taught in High School in the 60's (but were not given the source or authority which gave the definition) that the first word "it" in all those sentences quoted as examples in the above article (except for “It rains”) was a preparatory pronoun (now more fully explained in http://www.grammarstation.com/servlet/GGuide?type=OFIT) and that the second part of the sentences beginning with the word "that" (a subordinating conjunction) were all noun clauses in apposition of the pronoun "it" (such noun clauses being now treated as subject complements in http://www.iei.uiuc.edu/structure/structure1/nounclauses.html). All such sentences were deemed all right.

In http://faculty.brownell.edu/~dalarsen/Writing%20Material%20and%20Graphics/PRONO.html, such construction (except for "It rains") is stated to be inappropriate for impersonal-reference error as "it" does not refer to weather, time or distance. (Note: "It" as the subject of an abstract idea refers to an abstract idea like weather, time, temperature, distance or value - e.g.: It is raining. (weather); It is scorching hot outside. (temperature); It was two in the morning when he called. (time); It is two miles away. (distance); and It is 200 dollars. (value) vide http://www.grammarstation.com/servlet/GGuide?type=OFIT.)

All sentences under such construction (exept for "It rains") work like cleft sentences. A cleft sentence is defined in http://www.grammarstation.com/servlet/GGuide?type=CS as one used to focus exclusively on a clause element which is extraposed (postponed to the end of the clause) and its place is held by an it word. Such extraposition serves to add stylistic effect and draw more attention to that clause element.

Finally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive in quoting the example, "It is important that you work hard for the exam.", has stated that following the eighteenth-century conception of pronoun, Bishop Robert Lowth objected that since it is a pronoun, it should have an antecedent. Since it cannot function like that in Latin, Lowth said that the usage was incorrect in English. Whether or not it is pronoun here (and linguists today would say that it is one), English is not Latin; and the sentence was and is fully acceptable to native speakers of English and thus was and is grammatical. It has no meaning here; it merely serves as a dummy subject. (It is sometimes called preparatory it or prep it, or a dummy pronoun.)

Best regards,

Kengt, Penang

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