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Who Is Doing What To Whom
You know what you mean, but does anyone else?
English is a non-inflected language, which means we rely on word-order and clarity of exposition in order to make our thoughts clear to others. In an inflected language such as Russian, word-order doesn’t matter as much because word-endings tell us precisely who is doing what to whom. In English, word-order and clarity are essential for comprehension. This seems obvious, but it’s often forgotten in practice.
John gave the ball to Peter is entirely different from Peter gave the ball to John. We all know this, but that doesn’t stop us from saying things such as “he gave the ball to him.” Here, the information embedded within word-order is completely lost due to the infelicitous use of pronouns.
Sentences, in theory, require at a minimum subject, object, and verb. In real life, however, things often don’t run so smoothly.
I once sat in a small boutique San Francisco coffee shop for over an hour, during which time two thirty-something women behind me were engrossed in a conversation that ran like this:
“So I was like, totally, and she was like, you know?”
“Awesome!”
“And then I was like, hey, and she was like, sure!”
