First, second and third person (2)

In a previous post, I discussed grammatical person (first, second and third person). In that post, I quoted a book publisher’s statement that is difficult to understand because the publisher confuses second person with third person.

Today we have a piece of copy in which the writer confuses first person with second person with third person.

The writer has a friend who once worked as a torturer's gofer, hunting “for People of Interest, to then be turned over to torturers…” The writer and other friends of the torturer’s gofer are reluctant to talk about torture, both in and out of the gofer's presence:

“Silence seems to be the answer … at least to everyone [third person] in my circle. That’s how we [first person] handle it. You [second person] ignore it.”

The writer uses first person, second person and third person to refer to one group of people. This abuse of grammatical person is confusing to the reader. The writer would have made his point more clearly if he had written something like this:

Silence seems to be the answer … at least for us [first person]. That’s how we [first person] handle torture. We [first person] ignore it.

It makes the same point, with the same (or more) emotional impact and with more clarity.

The Takeaway: Don’t confuse your reader: don’t start a discussion in one grammatical person and then switch to another. The more you switch, the more you confuse. Review the pronoun section in your grammar book; learn first person, second person and third person so thoroughly that you will jar yourself awake whenever you accidentally switch person.

First, second and third person (1)