Lurking danger of pronouns

We need to be vigilant in a seemingly calm situation.






Using pronouns is a good way of avoiding bad repetition of a word or a phrase. However, there is always the lurking danger awaiting the unwary writer of slipping into ambiguity.

The mother and daughter are obviously very close. She is very sweet. These two adjoining sentences are taken from a popular national English daily.

Those are two simple sentences easily understood by anybody, but who can be sure that whom the 'she' is representing or referring to?

We have always to be careful in our writing so that our readers need not do any guesswork to understand us.

Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.
-- Anonymous