pronouns and determiners for clearer writing

Effective pronoun and determiner use in English can be tricky and very nuanced. I’ve already got a few articles on their uses here, where I’ve said it’s hard to learn from the rules alone.

The issue I want to discuss here is when general plurals are used instead of specific pronouns or determiners. This is where we make a broad, passive comment instead of a specific one (“Shouts could be heard from the cellar.”) and/or where we don’t properly define a plural (“He placed fingers on her arm.”).

There’s nothing grammatically wrong with these sentences, but a few extra words can make a world of difference. And it’s a matter I see frequently in editing, even with accomplished, native-speaking writers.

Using Defining Words to Add Clarity

It’s easy to avoid using pronouns and determiners with more general plurals. Unspecified plurals can give a broader feeling and keep our word count down, without needing to worry too much about tense forms and pronouns. In writing, we can use plurals for general and neutral statements, particularly useful in non-fiction, or for a sense of ambiguity/mystery in fiction.

Knees benefit from specific exercises.
Cars were piling up.
Footsteps came from outside.

However, these descriptions can often creep in where something more specific would be much clearer. The importance of determiners and pronouns comes when we want to establish that the noun is specific. The difference should be clear enough from those examples:

Her knees benefited from specific exercises.
The race cars were piling up.
Her footsteps came from outside.

The small changes create very different impressions. It depends on context, but without being so specific, the general comments can be much more easily misinterpreted, and are more clearly and quickly understood with exact phrasing. Revisiting the last example:

Footsteps came from outside.
Her footsteps came from outside.

In the first sentence, the origin is a mystery and could belong to anyone (or anything!). It implicitly warns us that there is an unknown element to them. The second sentence, however, suggests we know who the footsteps belong to. Depending on the context and what we know about ‘her’, this sentence will instead clearly indicate whether or not we should be concerned.

Similarly, with my example from the beginning:

Shouts could be heard from the cellar.

We don’t know whose shouts these are, so it’s especially uncertain. On its own, this one takes us further out of any particular moment as we don’t know who hears the shouts, either. Consider how much clearer a picture we get with these changes:

The prisoner’s shouts could be heard from the cellar.
The postman heard shouts from the cellar.

Going further, if we have a frame of reference for either who hears and who shouts and we don’t make those nouns specific, it reads in a disjointed way that begs perhaps unusual questions. In the examples below, I’d argue the sentences don’t feel properly connected:

The prisoner was locked up. Shouts could be heard from the cellar.
The postman paused. Shouts could be heard from the cellar.

It’s not necessarily going to cause confusion, but it could…

If we have detail to give, it’s generally a good idea to take every opportunity to layer in specifics rather than risk the possibility of tripping up your reader.

For a more extreme example, let’s revisit my other sentence from the beginning:

He placed fingers on her arm.

Or, even worse:

Fingers touched her arm.

These could be woefully misinterpreted. Whose fingers are they and where did they come from?! It’s a somewhat over-the-top and unlikely example, but it illustrates a point I see a lot in more subtle forms. Sometimes, these undefined plurals and more passive language can really create unwelcome images and confusion.

Simple pronouns and defining words can completely clarify the meaning:

He placed his fingers on her arm. (a personal gesture)
He placed a finger on her arm. (singular, specific; still fairly definite that it’s his)
He placed the fingers on her arm. (defining a group of fingers that we’ve hopefully already identified)

I hope this emphasises how effective such small definition changes can be in correctly conveying the meaning of your sentences.