Kibbitzer 58

The Over-worked 'It' (Part Three)


The following revisions are taken from a dissertation by a Korean-speaking student of Business Studies:

OriginalRevisions
... it is believed that school leavers are more likely to follow the company's principles than those who have worked for other companies. It may be one reason for the inflexibility of the Korean labour market.... it is believed that school leavers are more likely to follow the company's principles than those who have worked for other companies. That may be one reason for the inflexibility of the Korean labour market
... it is believed that school leavers are more likely to follow the company's principles than those who have worked for other companies. That belief may be one reason for the inflexibility of the Korean labour market.

The point here is that it canot be used to cross-refer to a statement or part of a statement in the preceding context. The usual pronoun is that, with that + Noun (see second revision) often preferred to make the cross-reference clearer.

In the following citations, decide what the missing noun is to make a clear cross-reference:

  1. Mr Howard's compromise drops the proposal for him to appoint the chairmen of the police authorities. That __________ will now be in the hands of the authorities themselves.

  2. Suicide is no longer an offence, and it should therefore follow that consent to injury should negative any offence. That __________ is not watertight, however, because existing law does not allow euthanasia.

  3. The tRNA molecules are themselves copies of DNA genes in the nucleus. When they are first made, they do not have a glycine molecule attached. That __________ is performed in the cytoplasm by a special protein, which is able to recognize both the glycine molecule, and the end of the tRNA molecule, and stick them together.

  4. Clarke decided in 1956 to live in Sri Lanka permanently. That __________ was less smooth than it appeared from outside, because until 1975 the tax laws effectively required Clarke to be absent from the country for half of each year.

  5. "French scientists are very unaware of conservation issues in comparison with British or American researchers," says Thiollay. "People used to say 'It is a huge reserve, just leave it.'" That __________ has been overtaken by developments and official decisions are needed now to address the problems that will emerge in the next 20 years.

  6. Young ammonites died because they were tiny and lived near the surface; young nautiluses survived because they were larger and lived in the ocean depths. That __________ is not simple survival of the fittest; it may be more a matter of luck.

  7. The Aborigines of Australia were deemed to be cannibals before the First Fleet arrived. That __________ justified the process and brutality of colonisation: for `they are cannibals" read `we want their land".

  8. A puzzling shift in the cold Labrador Current, flowing south from the Arctic, has recently pushed temperatures down by a critical two degrees Fahrenheit. That __________ has been enough to cause the cod population to migrate and slow their rate of growth: a seven-year-old cod today is the same size and weight as a four-year-old cod was in the Seventies.

Words argument, attachment, attitude, decision, difference, drop, move, perception

Click here to see the answers


15th March 1999 Consultant: Tim Johns
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