It is . . . . .

[Sherrill Fink <sfink -at- RELAY -dot- NSWC -dot- NAVY -dot- MIL>]

Recently, to answer the framis/whoosie question, I saw the following
suggestion:

The whizbang is a ___. It is used for ____. It requires whoozies (see above).

I wish to comment on the It is . . structure in general and not criticize
Betsy Maaks in particular.

I worked for four years as a technical writer/editor in a publications group.
Never thought twice about the occasional use of It is . . . until I left
the group to work for another group at the same installation.  On my first
day, I asked my boss (not a "writer" but pretty darn good with language)
what his pet peeves were.  Guess what--It is . . . topped the list!  He
says that you cannot always tell what the antecendent for "it" is supposed
to be!  Same goes for "This is . . ." and other similar constructions.  He
advocates rewriting or at the very least adding a noun after this . . .
(can't do that with an "it" construction).  Since he pays me, his pet peeve
has become mine.  Hence, my poor husband watched as I edited one of  his
papers at midnight muttering "What is *it*?" as I struggled to rewrite some
sentences.  Plaintively, he said, "You never *used* to care if I started
a sentence that way until you started working for <name removed>!

Anyway, I hope this long post provides food for thought to someone.

Thanks, Sherrill