Grammar question from an unnamed Forum member sent to my Personal Message box (August 3, 2019):Sir, I am uncomfortable to post this question directly, so I send this to you privately to hide my identity. I am sometimes doubtful to ask questions like #2 below because they are from court documents whose contents are not always intended for a general audience. What can you say about my concerns about them?
My questions:
1. Are the phrases “quick perusal” and “careful perusal” considered as redundant expressions?
2. In a civil case where the plaintiff is a corporation (or corporations), what should be the appropriate pronoun to replace “corporation” as a sentence like this: “Thus, the plaintiff was constrained to move that the Sheriff be ordered to submit the required return and that _______ be furnished with copy thereof so that it can take actions to prosecute this case.” I was advised that it should be the pronoun “it” that should be used.
My reply to the inquiring Forum member:1. From a grammar standpoint, the phrases “quick perusal” and “careful perusal” may be considered redundant expressions because the well-established primary meaning of the noun “perusal” is “to examine or consider with attention and in detail,” strongly suggesting (a) that the consideration is not “quick” but “deliberate or thought about carefully”—thus negating the need for the adjective “quick” to modify “perusal”; and (b) that the adjective “careful” modifying “perusal” is superfluous based on the well-established primary meaning of “perusal.” However, my
Merriam-Webster’s International Collegiate Dictionary cites what appears to be two contraindicated meanings of “perusal,” namely (a) “STUDY,” in the sense of “to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner, and (b) “READ,” especially in the sense of “to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner.”
These two other meanings of “perusal” appear to be contemporary informal senses of that word, possibly colloquial. I therefore propose that you stick to the usage of the word “perusal” unmodified by either “quick” or “careful” only in truly formal writing, as in the statement “My
perusal of your written arguments clearly indicates that you are not being honest and straightforward with us.” You can say with confidence that “quick” as modifier of “perusal” is an
oxymoron—a contradictory or incongruous word because “quickness” isn’t a normal attribute of the act of “perusing”—and that the second modifier, “careful,” is needless for “perusal” because “carefulness” is already a built-in attribute of the word.
In less official situations or in actual real-life encounters, however, I don’t think it’s advisable to discriminate against the adjectives “quick” or “careful” altogether as modifiers of “perusal.” Heedless of faulty grammar and semantics, people are likely be prone to utter hyperbolic statements to defend their positions in the heat of conflict, like saying, “How dare you dispute our findings after our
extremely careful perusal of the facts of this case?” Correcting their English under such circumstances would be foolhardy and definitely not worth the trouble!
2. In the sentence presented in your second question, using the pronoun “it” instead of “corporation” isn’t semantically advisable considering that another subject—the noun phrase “the required return”—could be mistakenly taken as the antecedent noun of “it.” Much clearer and grammatically safer not to use the pronoun “it” and to use “the corporation” instead: “Thus, the plaintiff was constrained to move that the Sheriff be ordered to submit the required return and that
the corporation be furnished with copy thereof so that it can take actions to prosecute this case.”
