“The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and oneself have no apostrophe.”
“They. A common inaccuracy is the use of the plural pronoun when the antecedent is a distributive expression such as each, each one, everybody, every one, many a man,which, though implying more than one person, requires the pronoun to be in the singular. Similar to this, but with even less justification, is the use of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody, any one, somebody, some one, the intention being either to avoid the awkward "he or she," or to avoid committing oneself to either. Some bashful speakers even say, "A friend of mine told me that they, etc."”
“"MUMMY!!" the terrified child from before cried fiercely from inside one of the houses south of the bank, breaking the bunch into a horrified frenzy and bringing the topic of Veronica's presence to a halt. Mad dashes towards the house were made, Veronica and Jaden being swept up in their parents arms to avoid them being trampled by anxious citizens.”
I am not fond of this particular paragraph. The first mistake I note is that you include two exclamation marks at the end of “MUMMY”. You should reserve using this style of punctuation for only the most appropriate circumstances. Using two exclamation marks emphasizes to a great extent the magnitude of the yell. Your following commentary on whence this cry came and the ensuing action is, to be frank, not at all complimentary to this.
Secondly, I really find the line “child from before” to be execrable. It is utterly vague, nondescript, and confusing to the reader. The child from before could be Veronica, who you are now not naming, or it could be any other child thus-far insinuated into the story.
13-Apr-2009 17:33:56
