Editorial

She or her?

Tim Johnston

What’s in a word?

A comment came my way concerning copy I had written for the Gotcha! Photo Contest (ATA News, May 10, 2005). Hazel Sharpe, a retired Calgary teacher, wrote to say she had enjoyed the photographs and appreciated my reasons for choosing the winning images. In particular, she liked a sentence concerning the first-place photograph: "Her opponent’s aggressive intentions are clear but seem not to faze she who can control the world with only one toe."

"I hesitate to bring this to your attention," Hazel wrote, "but [the sentence] contains a grammatical error." She explained that the objective form of the pronoun her should be used after the verb faze. Being a good and kindly teacher, Hazel offered me a way out. "Perhaps it could be argued that ‘she’ sounds more poetic."

I had to laugh. Managing Editor Raymond Gariépy had tripped over this sentence when editing my copy. He wasn’t nearly as considerate as Hazel. "What are you trying to say with this?" was all he had red-penned in the margin. I should have replied that I was trying to be poetic. Raymond’s grammar guard switched on when he read the sentence, but I convinced him that I wanted it left the way it was.

Having always to rely on the good judgment of my editorial colleagues, I wanted to find out what others would say about my sentence. I asked Kristina Lundberg, one of our specialist council editors, for her take on she and her. Kristina said that normally one would write "seem not to faze her." But, she said, my sentence was more complex than that. She would ask other editors on the Internet.

"Hmm," one veteran replied. "I sort of see ‘she who can control the world with only one toe’ as a kind of name. Thus it would make no sense to use ‘her’ even if it is the object of a verb. A name is a name." Another editor, responding from Israel, said he would consider capitalizing She and thereby turning it into a proper name. "In this way, She would be immune to turning into Her. If ‘she’ is just a pronoun, the sentence demands ‘her’ instead, even though it rather ruins the nice turn of phrase."

The author of Webster’s Dictionary of the Law said: "In a nutshell, you don’t say ‘it doesn’t faze she,’ you say ‘it doesn’t faze her.’" He mentioned an advertisement he saw for a trashy movie that used the Biblical line: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." "Wait a minute!" this editor wrote. "Let ‘he’ cast the first stone? With all the money involved you’d think they could have run this past a copyeditor—as the writer in this case is commendably (though, alas, belatedly) doing."

Building on this editor’s example, a freelancer in New Jersey took a slightly different approach. She did a Google search for "Let him who is without sin" and "Let he who is without sin." She got about 6,000 hits for him and more than 22,000 hits for he.

The final point of view was offered by an editor in Washington state. He said simply: "The real answer is the sentence needs to be rewritten." He signed off as "Bob, married to she who must be obeyed, in eastern Washington."

I called Hazel to find out where she had honed her grammatical skills. Hazel started teaching upper elementary grades after graduating from teachers’ college in Nova Scotia. A Dalhousie B.A. followed, after which she taught high school English. She ventured west to teach in a First Nations village near Prince Rupert, B.C., in 1957. "I wrote to the Calgary Board of Education enquiring about teaching there," Hazel told me. "The letter that I received back notified me that I was hired!" Her first posting was Elboya Elementary Junior High School, after which she moved to Greenview Elementary. She retired in 1991.

What’s in a word? A simple word used in a questionable way prompted an experienced teacher to respond to a teachable moment. Because she did, I had fun learning the views of others who take words and their usage seriously. I hope you did, too. Enjoy the summer.

I welcome your comments—contact me at tjohnston@teachers.ab.ca.