English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Consider these sentences:
John and Bill met at the airport. He invited him to his home.
One cannot make out who invited whom. However:
John and Mary met at the airport. He invited her to his home.
Here, we can tell who invited whom. But this is because we "know" that Mary is a woman's name. Is it really correct to use pronouns this way?
You're right that the first sentences are unclear because the pronouns have no clear antecedent. Were the sentences "John met Bill at the airport. He invited him to his home.", the order of the pronouns would allow the reader to make the correct inference that John invited Bill, but it would take more time than if the sentences were written as
John met Bill at the airport. John invited him to his home. [Clear but poor style]
John met Bill at the airport and invited him to his home. [Clear and better style]
There is only one meaningful rule for this situation: Avoid ambiguity and facilitate ease of understanding. If a pronoun has multiple possible antecedents, make clear who or what the pronoun's antecedent is. Don't force readers to waste their time inferring what it is based on some apocryphal and idiosyncratic ad hoc rule based on "the order of introduction": There is no such rule.
John, Bill, and Tom met at the airport. He invited the two of them to his home.
Were there a rule based on the order of introduction, it would be instantly clear that John did the inviting and that Bill and Tom were invited to go to John's home. But it's not at all clear that this is the case. It would be clearer if the sentence were:
John met Bill and Tom at the airport. He invited the two of them to his home.
Still, for the sake of clarity and ease of understanding, these sentences are better if rendered as:
John met Bill and Tom at the airport. John invited the two of them to his home.
or
John met Bill and Tom at the airport and invited the two of them to his home.
Actually in the example you cited, both are unambiguous in Standard English. When there is an ambiguity, pronouns follow the order of introduction in the previous sentence, if it makes sense to do so.
John and Bill met at the airport. He invited him to his home.
Is a slightly confusing way of saying that John invited Bill to his home (and never the reverse). It is valid (but confusing) because "John" is the first noun in the first sentence, and this matches gender and location to the "he" in the second sentence. Note that when the order is violated by making one of the pronouns unexpected and explicit, the sentence becomes invalid:
John and Bill met at the airport. He invited Bill to his home
Is valid,
John and Bill met at the airport. He invited John to his home.
Is not.
In the case where you wanted to say that Bill invited John to his home, you would need to disambiguate:
John and Bill met at the airport. Bill invited John to his home.
(Note that the "his" in the second sentence again refers to Bill).
There is no such confusion when the pronouns are different:
Bill met Mary at the airport. He invited her back to his house
(Mary was invited to Bill's house)
Bill met Mary at the airport. She invited him back to her house.
(Bill was invited to Mary's house).
Confusions arise when nouns are introduced not all in the same sentence.
Bill travelled to New York on Tuesday. David travelled there on Wednesday. On Thursday, he invited him for drinks.
Is another example of an ambiguous (and hence wrong) sentence.
My advice, however, is that when the sentence becomes complicated it's always better to err on the side of caution, and to be explicit avoiding pronouns.
this waywhich way? Please expand. Which particular point is striking you?