Cheah Teik Ee, Penang has said that it is a stupid practice to say/write, “It’s raining” and to use “There is” at the start of a paragraph in his article published by THE STAR’S MIND OUR ENGLISH on December 20, 2006 which has attracted comments from Jordan MacVay, Dr Lim Chin Lam, Penang and Mahid bin Masseluang, Labuan appearing in THE STAR’S MIND OUR ENGLISH on January 4, 2007 and on January 10, 2007. These four are interesting articles which are reproduced below for your reading pleasure:-
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Wednesday December 20, 2006
Stupid practice
USING a pronoun before a subject is named, is stupid.
This practice is grammatically correct, but logically stupid; no-one will know what a pronoun represents before a subject is named, e.g. "It's raining."
I'll never say this. I'll say "Rain is falling" or "The sky is raining".
In a short sentence like this, listeners need not wait long to get a clue of what the subject represented is, but in long sentences, listeners must wait and wonder what the subjects are. This is a waste of listeners'/ readers' time.
The same is true of "There is ..." at the start of a paragraph; no-one knows what "there" represents before reading much further.
This practice is the most stupid feature in English. I know two other languages (Chinese and Malay); both have their own stupid features but not this one.
In Chinese/Malay, if one uses a pronoun before naming the subject represented, one will be deemed mad. Only monolingual users of English cannot realise how stupid this practice is, because they cannot compare English with any other language.
In Rod Stewart's lyric "When it comes to being lucky ...", what does this "it" represent? Listeners can only guess.
Now I ignore any (i) article composed like this (plain stupid and irritating, and indicates a low IQ), e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4501323.stm , and (ii) TV host who resorts to this stupid practice. – Cheah Teik Ee, Penang Thursday January 4, 2007Writer not stupid but ignorant
CHEAH Teik Ee's letter ('Stupid Practice', Dec 20) displays astounding ignorance on the part of the writer.
The pronoun "it" in "it's raining" does not require an antecedent because in this case it is not a referential pronoun. Considering the factual errors and mistakes in grammar and usage in the letter, I wouldn't expect the writer to know that.
A lot of native speakers of English wouldn't know either, but despite the fact that it's a quirky construction, they would be able to use it properly without resorting to the uninformed opinions and laughable arguments belched out by the writer of that letter.
Anyone who makes such factually incorrect and culturally insensitive statements obviously still has a big obstacle to face in mastering English (or any other language): an inability to think outside of the confines of one's culture and mother tongue.
The writer's enthusiasm for calling people stupid adds comic irony to the letter. I won't say the writer is stupid, though – just very ignorant. – Jordan MacVay
Wednesday January 10, 2007
It rained, there is
IT is incredible, that letter from Cheah Teik Ee (Dec 20). Surely, it is not another prescription to bring the English language to greater heights?
There is nothing wrong in using the pronoun it in sentences such as "It is raining", "it hailed last night", and "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...".
In such cases, the pronoun it does not stand for anything – it has no antecedent. It is the type of pronoun known as an impersonal pronoun. Readers may also note that there is another type of pronoun, the indefinite pronoun – such as all, one, anyone, none, someone, anybody, somebody, nobody – which refers to no person or thing in particular and yet is used without any antecedent or referent.
Let us switch to another example: "To err is human." It is just as grammatically correct to write "It is human to err." In the latter construction, the pronoun it stands for the substantive to err . Here, the pronoun appears before the noun phrase to which it refers. To call such substantive (noun or noun phrase or noun clause) an antecedent is a contradiction in terms. It is properly called a referent.
Let us look at still another set of examples: "Step on it", "hold it", "beat it", "you blew it", "you put your foot in it", "take it easy", "knock it off", "get away with it".
There are no obvious antecedents or referents for such punchy expressions and slang (courtesy largely of the USA), yet their meanings are well understood. Here, the antecedents – if one must use the term – are almost self-explanatory.
"Step on it" (hurry up) = "step on the accelerator pedal" – as if one is driving a car. "Beat it" (get away) = "beat a retreat". "You put your foot in it" (you made an embarrassing blunder) = "you put your foot in your mouth".
I now come to the other issue raised by Cheah Teik Ee – and I quote: "The same is true of 'there is ...' at the start of a paragraph; no-one knows what 'there' represents before reading much further." He did not follow his own prescription. He should not have used the pronoun "no-one" – it has no antecedent!
However, the point I want to make is that the word "there" in his example is not a pronoun – it is an adverb, but a special type of adverb. Ordinarily, there is an adverb of place ("he went there after school", "there she blows!", "there you will find your book"). When it appears, usually at the beginning of a sentence, and is immediately followed by the verb "to be" or other appropriate verbs, it is not a noun or pronoun and it is not the subject of the verb that follows. It is an introductory adverb – it introduces a person or thing ("there is a mango tree in the garden", "once upon a time, there lived a woodcutter ...") or more than one person or thing ("there are a supermarket and a cineplex in that little town").
Incidentally, the above "there is", "there lived" and "there are" sentences are examples of an inverted construction, where the usual noun-verb order is reversed.
It is now nine days into January. I like January. There is a newness about it. I also like December when I can hear Christmas carols – "there were shepherds in the field watching over their flock by night...", "It came upon the midnight clear ...". Hey! Am I being obtuse? Have I used the pronoun it and the so-called pronoun there wrongly? – Dr Lim Chin Lam, Penang
'It' has its purpose
I WAS amused, if not irritated, reading Cheah Teik Ee's opinion regarding the stupidity of using a pronoun before a subject is named (Dec 20). What Mr Cheah is talking about is really the use of the "dummy pronoun".
I don't think it's stupid. A dummy pronoun has its purpose in English sentence constructions. English is a non-pro-drop language (A pro-drop language is a language in which a pronoun can be 'dropped' or deleted if it can be inferred, such as in Japanese and Mandarin). Therefore, the use of "it" or "there" at the beginning of sentences, though having no real meaning (dummy), is required syntactically. In other words, the use of dummy pronouns serves not to fulfil the semantic side of the language, but rather its syntactic side.
In English, we don't say "Hey, raining" when there is a downpour while it is permissible to say "Hey, hujan" in Malay. "Hey, raining" is considered syntactically poor although it is perfectly logical and meaningful.
Sentences in the English language must have a subject. We have various sentence constructions in English and all of them begin with a subject. A subject, whether it is real (having meaning) or dummy (having no meaning), is required in all English sentence constructions.
Thus, when we comment on other languages, we must not look at them from only one perspective (in this case, the semantic point of view) because certain elements of a language have their specific purposes – syntactically, pragmatically and/or stylistically. – Mahid bin Masseluang, Labuan
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On January 16, 2007 I also wrote my comments to THE STAR’S MIND OUR ENGLISH, but mine has not been published. They are, however, reproduced below also (with the provision of the relevant sites which were not earlier provided) for your reading pleasure:-
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The comments given by Jordan MacVay (Jan. 4, 07), Dr Lim Chin Lam, Penang and Mahid bin Masseluang, Labuan (both on Jan. 10, 07) - especially those of Dr Lim Chin Lam - offer very good explanations of the subject matters brought up by Cheah Teik Ee, Penang (Dec. 20, 06).
We should, however, be mindful that constructions/sentences beginning with "It" and "There" (both of which are sometimes also called expletives being words or other grammatical elements that have no meaning but are needed to fill a syntactic position ) are still in dispute as to their functions and whether such constructions/sentences are grammatically sound as can be seen from the following assertions taken from internet:-
In MR. LARSEN'S PROOFREADER MARKS
( http://faculty.brownell.edu/~dalarsenWriting%20Materials%20and%20Graphics/PROOFREADER%20MARKS.html#anchor483627)
"THE FIRST RESPONSIBILITY OF A WRITER IS CLARITY." --Dr. John McKenna, Professor of English, the University of Nebraska, Omaha
any permutation of the words there are (there is, there might be, there could be, etc.) [There are] many phrases to use instead of there are. Consider the following example: "Montag believes [there is] something important in the books." A better sentence might read "Montag believes books contain something important."
Here is an example of a broad reference error from a student's paper: "The telescreens are always on. It is a method that the government uses to brainwash people." The pronoun It has no antecedent; clearly the word cannot refer to telescreens. Rather, the pronoun refers to some broad idea like "The telescreen being on . . . ." The revised sentence might read "The telescreens were the government's instrument for brainswashing people" or "The telescreens were always on, and they provided a means for the government to brainwash the people."
imp. ref. --This indicates an impersonal reference error involving the pronoun it, as in "It's necessary to work hard." The pronoun it has no logical antecedent in the sentence. The corrected sentence might read "Hard work is necessary."Here are two more examples from students' papers: "It had been one of Mildred's friends who made the call," and "It was decided that books should be burned." The pronoun It has no logical antecedent in either sentence. Notice, too, the use of the passive voice ( voice, which see) in the second sentence. Corrected, these sentences might read "One of Mildred's friends had made the call" and "The government decided to burn books."
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive)
"It is important that you work hard for the exam."
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 a 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.)
It is worth noting that Bishop Lowth did not condemn sentences that use there as an expletive, even though it is one in for example:
"There are ten desks here."
The nomenclature used for the constituents of sentences such as this is still a matter of some dispute, but there might be called subject, are copula, and ten desks predicate nominal. Meanwhile here is an adverbial phrase that conveniently reveals the semantic vacuity of there in this example.
There is some disagreement over whether the it in such sentences as "It is raining now." are expletives. Whereas it makes no sense to ask what the it refers to in "It is important that you work hard for the exam", some people might say that the dummy it in "It is raining now" refers to the weather (even if the word weather has not previously been mentioned). Thus the it in such sentences is sometimes called expletive, sometimes a weather "it".
Kengt, Penang 16JAN07
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I have later found out that Reader's Digest HOW TO WRITE AND SPEAK BETTER (Reprinted in Hong Kong in 2005) also discourages the use of "There is (or there are)" and "It is" and encourages punchier variations vide Page 51.
