Is a person a Who or a That?

Reposted with permission from Bryan Garner, Distinguished Research Professor of Law, Southern Baptist University.

 

 

Is person that (as opposed to who) proper?
      Is it permissible to say people that, or must you always say people who? One often hears language aficionados who proclaim that who is best for people, and that that, strictly speaking, is loose or even taboo as a relative pronoun referring to humans.

      They're wrong: people that has always been good English, and it's a silly superstition to insist that who is the only relative pronoun that can refer to humans. Consider a sampling of authorities that (or who) explain the situation:

• "That has been the standard relative pronoun for about eight hundred years and can be used in speaking of persons, animals, or things. . . . Three hundred years ago who also became popular as a relative. It was used in speaking of persons and animals but not of things. . . . Who may in time drive out that as a relative referring to persons, but it has not yet done so. . . . That may still be used in speaking of a person, as in the child that has been subject to nagging is in perpetual terror." Bergen Evans & Cornelia Evans, A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage 555 (1957).
• "Since when is that rather than who permissible in referring to persons? The answer, of course, is: since the language was in its infancy." Theodore M. Bernstein, Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer's Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Usage 81 (1971).
• "Of these relative pronouns, . . . that [refers] to things and persons; who to persons only." Eric Partridge, Usage and Abusage 375 (1982).
• "Down through the centuries, that has often been used with a human antecedent. Chaucer, Langland, and Wyclif are all cited in the OED using that in this way, and examples are also given from writers in each of the later centuries." R.W. Burchfield, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage 773 (3d ed. 1996).
• "Who . . . normally refers to a person . . . . That refers to a person, animal, or thing . . . ." Bryan A. Garner, "Grammar and Usage," in The Chicago Manual of Style § 5.54, at 218 (16th ed. 2010).

      My recommendation: don't be one of those people that insist on not using that in reference to humans. And be curious enough to consult usage books when you suspect that someone is linguistically errant.

Sources:Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage 945
   (3d ed. 2011).Garner's Modern American Usage 808, 862
   (3d ed. 2009).

When is a manuscript finished?

When is a story or a manuscript finished?

I think mine is finished when it’s perfect. You know, after that first draft, and after I go through it for the sixth or seventh time, editing, tweaking, adding, subtracting, and polishing. Okay, maybe the eighth or ninth time. What? Still not perfect?

Newsflash: mine will never be perfect by anyone’s standards—especially not by mine, my editor’s, my readers’ or my publisher’s. Therefore, it will never be finished. Does that mean I stop? No, it means I quit.

Nobody knows what perfect means. Of course we all type The End, when we are finished. However, The End to me, doesn’t mean it’s really finished. It simply means I quit.

I don’t mean quitting here in a bad sense. It means I will quit re-writing, editing, polishing, tweaking, listening to critics and making changes. Quitting means that I am confident that the story or manuscript is the best that I can make it. Quitting means that it’s ready to let loose to the world.

I quit only after editing, rewriting, and polishing. Am I speaking doublespeak? No. I absolutely edit, re-write and polish. But only enough to get me to a place where I can quit. So is the story, manuscript finished? Probably not. But I will quit and publish it.

A friend of mine, a talented artist once told me that his paintings were never finished. He simply quit painting on them.

So it is with my manuscripts.

How NOT To Write A Novel

While thinking about what I would write about today, and procrastinating as much as possible, yet still failing to accomplish anything, I found this in my email and just had to share.

 

How Not To Write A Novel, In Ten Easy Steps (A tongue-in-cheek look at how to prepare for your next book) BY: MELANIE MEADORS 1. Binge watch all of Doctor Who.  Or maybe Downton Abbey, if that’s more your thing. It’s market research, right? And it’s kind of popular, so you want to stay with the times. Very important to be able to relate to your fans. You have to watch at least two episodes per night in order to be able to keep up with it all…which doesn’t leave much room for writing. 2. Sit there and stare at your computer. For hours. Trying to think of the absolute, most PERFECT way to begin your story. Because once those words are down, YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE THEM. Am I right? Huh? 3. Listen to everyone’s writing advice ever, simultaneously. So I should outline. That’s what JR Ward does. Or…maybe I shouldn’t, because Joe Hill says they are the devil. And I need to have an office with a door that closes, because Stephen King says that’s the thing to do. Only, JK Rowling writes in cafes… and then should I write the end first? I heard a few guys suggest that. But everyone *I* know starts from the beginning. 4. Watch your Twitter feed like it’s TV. Because you never know what’s going to pop up. Industry news is important! 5. STORYBOARD!! But before you storyboard, you have to go to the store to buy all kinds of post it notes and colored markers. And then you have to lay everything out juuuuust perfectly. I mean, this could take WEEKS. 6. Drink. Yeah, I know. There are so many famous novelists out there who were total drunks! It has to be a for-sure way to finish a novel. Well, no way. You have a drink, you start thinking about plot points. Next thing you know, you’re…well, binge watching Doctor Who. Or pulling pranks on your neighbors. Or singing karaoke with your husband. It’s not pretty. 7. Only write when the muse strikes. That’s right. Wait for her to come floating along on the ether, magic wand at the ready, singing and sparkling. As soon at that happens, the writing magic begins! 8. Share a hotel room with your boss. “We’re gonna get SO much work done on this trip! We’re going to write! We’re gonna to get business stuff done! We’re gonna…are you sleepy? I’m sleepy. Let’s take a nap.” 9. Constantly revise. Because incessant polishing that you-know-what will make it shine. Yup. Write a draft. Then write another one because that one stunk. But this one stinks too. This next idea sounds AWESOME! Yeah, it sucks. Maybe if I change the POV character… or make it set on the moon! It’s kind of like the Winchester Mansion. Keep adding on and fixing it, and it will NEVER be done. 10. Get lots of bunnies as pets. Not only are they cute, but they are constant sources of both entertainment and distraction. And if you refuse to be distracted…well, they will ensure you are by being naughty. Well, that about sums it up. So, remember, kids, if you never want to get that novel or story written, be sure to follow these steps to the letter. Do you guys have any additions to the list?

Bad Dreams

I had a bad dream last night. Oh, it wasn’t a scary dream, like about monsters or such, but it was, nevertheless, a really bad dream. It made me wonder, once I awoke, whether or not dreams like this could be fatal.

Whenever I used to hear that someone died in his or her sleep from a heart attack or stroke, I would always cluck sympathetically and assume that the person had some sort of underlying risk. That their time was up.

But after my bad dream, I have to ask myself, “What if someone’s death was really from a bad dream?” Because, if they died we’d never know if the bad dream caused the death.  He or she wouldn’t be around to tell us. After my bad dream, I have to wonder.

In my dream, I became so angry at someone, that I was out of control furious. I’m pretty sure my blood pressure had to have shot through the top of my head. I don’t suffer from high blood pressure issues, so the end didn’t come for me last night. But what if I had high blood pressure? Or a bad heart? Seriously. Maybe I would have died. And my poor husband would have told everyone at the visitation, “So strange that she died of a heart attack. She didn’t have heart problems. Of course, she wasn’t a teenager anymore. Tsk Tsk.”

Many years ago, I read an article by a psychologist or a psychiatrist ( I always get those two mixed up) who postured that if one was in the habit of having scary dreams, one could train oneself to say “this is only a dream,” and then bring oneself out of the dream.  I’ve actually tried that a time or two, and saved myself from some blood sucking monsters. I would wake up and the dream would fizzle away.

But back to this terrible rage I felt. I didn’t tell myself I was only dreaming. Probably because the dream was so vividly real. Someone was messing with Cami, my ’79 Camaro. It stayed with me all day. I think the only solution to that is to train myself in real life not to get so angry. Wait, I did that already. Perhaps it’s all the repressed rage manifesting itself while I sleep. After holding it in so long, and all.

I may need help from one of those psycho people… psychologist or psychiatrist?

 

Writing is Like Mowing the Yard

I don’t think I’m obsessive compulsive. Just because I like order in my surroundings doesn’t mean I’m OCD. So okay, I clean off my desk every night when I go home from work (at my real job). I just like to start fresh every day.

Last weekend I decided to mow. I walked over to get the ZTR Hustler out of the shed, and of course,  it needed gas. My son had mowed and there was barely enough gas left in it to start it. I keep the gas in a different shed. So I started it, drove it to the shed and filled up with gas. I also checked the oil. It’s a five thousand dollar mower, so I don’t want it blowing up for lack of maintenance.  When all was ready, I headed out back to mow near the pond.

I mow in a pattern. It’s a huge patch, so if I looked at the entire thing as one big area, I would have gotten discouraged. Instead, I picked a small section at a time, mowed it, then moved on to another section and so forth. As I mowed, I encountered large branches that had fallen during the storm. I detoured around those and left them until I could go fetch the big Kubota tractor with the front end loader. I also detoured around several land turtles who thought they were hiding. If those turtles had been the alligator snapping turtles, they would have been blown away. I mow with my .38 by my side. I didn’t detour around the snake. I mowed him over.

When I was nearly finished, I spotted several big rocks. Where I live, rocks are a thriving crop. Again, another task for the Kubota. When I finished mowing, I fetched the weed eater to clean up the mowed area and put finishing touches on the job.

As I mowed, I thought about my current work in progress. I was nearing the end of my first draft, and had one major final scene left to write. I planned it out in my head. Mowing is good planning time.

You see, my idea for this current Rhetta adventure is a pretty big-seventy plus thousand words, many chapters, lots of scenes. When I first pantsed it, (I’m a pantser not a plotter) it was nearly too big to tackle. However, I sat down at the computer and prepared my new Word doc, spent time setting up margins headers, footers, etc. When the maintenance was done, I was ready to mow. I mean, write.

I knew where I wanted the story to start and where I wanted it to end. I knew what had to be in the middle. So I began to mow. I mean, write. I wrote in scenes, and chapters. Soon the scenes and chapters seamed themselves together into a story. Along the way, I circled round some tough spots, like those branches. I left them, marked them to return later to fix. I got my Kubota, I mean my husband, Bill, who is my best reader, to help me move them.

I found the land turtles, I mean, story inconsistencies, moved them, too, and cleaned up the story.

I met a huge snake, my synopsis and showed him who was boss.

My story is done and the weed eating begins. I mean editing.

Writing is just like mowing.