this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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Can't tell if in that last part you're talking about KDE/Plasma or about Windows 11.
I thought "it" in this case would clearly refer to "having to go back to Windows" from the first part of the sentence.
But I am not a native English speaker, perhaps there's a difference to the use in my language?
How would you use "it" as a reference correctly in English here?
Your use of "it" wasn't incorrect. English allows for grammatically correct sentences that are nevertheless potentially ambiguous.
The confusion arises because "it" refers to the antecedent noun in a sentence, and nouns are typically considered the "subject" of a sentence. However, there is also a "subject" of discussion—which shifted to being the messiness of the Windows 11 UI. Thus, "it" became a vague reference.
The only "fix" is to restate the noun to which you are attempting to refer.
For example: "I put my laptop in my bag. When I went to grab my bag, I dropped it."
Did I drop my bag or did I drop my laptop? The answer is unclear. A clearer statement would be something like: "I put my laptop in my bag. I dropped the bag containing my laptop when I attempted to grab my bag."
Or, "I put my laptop in my bag. When I went to grab my bag, I dropped my laptop out of the bag."
How you phrase your meaning depends upon whichever situation you intended to convey, but the solution is to avoid the use of the word "it" entirely.
Isn't English a wonderful language? (Sarcasm) 😁
Thanks, that has been really helpful advice!
I will try to keep it in mind and rather re-mention the stuff that I refer to instead of using pronouns for the sake of clarity.
That will be hard for me, though. I do love my tapeworm-sentences with lots of indirections and implicit references... ;-)
I'm no native english speaker either, but have seen people bitching about the supposed lack of design in KDE so I felt I needed to ask
Design as in "graphical design"?
And even if, they probably also weren't comparing to Win11 design, I guess, because even that is inconsistent (and an eyesore on top...)
You both seem to be using the language correctly. I wouldn’t have guessed either of you weren’t native speakers.
Except for @Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de ’s use of “elementary semesters”… seems their first language is German.
Wie gehts?
Man kann nicht genug klagen... Und selber?
Und ja, ich habe beim Schreiben schon vermutet, dass meine eher wörtliche Übersertzung von "Grundstudium" möglicherweise nicht so 100% korrekt sein könnte.
Aber mir ist aber auf Anhieb auch nix Besseres eingefallen... 🤷♂️
Ohhhhh my… I fucked up. You caught me acting like I know more than it do 🤦♂️. I took a bit of German in high school, then two semesters of German as an undergraduate in college, but it’s been more than 20 years since those courses, lol.
I think “undergraduate” is what you meant by “elementary”… that is a bachelor’s degree program. Without looking it up first, you definitely succeeded in getting your point across. I didn’t think you were non-native, I just thought you were British 😂
With a bit of help from my translator app, I was able to parse your “auf Deutsch” response ☺️