Back to FJ menu

When we speak, we're very comfortable with pronouns. We "she" this and "he" that. Sometimes we try to be "too correct" and say, "That's between he and I."

That's wrong.

It's understandable that you would make that mistake. You hear the wrong use of pronoun cases on TV all the time.

And we know how much TV you watch.

Oddly enough, when writers begin trying to write in journalistic style, they avoid pronouns. They are so worried about using the wrong pronoun that they repeat a person's name over and over.

"James Brown was a cool dude. Brown was a well-known singer and performer in the late 1960s. Brown's dancing was particularly entertaining."

Can you say "he"?

Loosen up. Write like you talk.

What specifically is a pronoun? A pronoun takes the place of a noun and functions as a noun would function. (Or I could have written: "It takes the place … ." I would have been using It in place of A pronoun.)

One of those words

Here's one of those words you need to learn just for learning about pronouns. You may not ever use it again in your life, but you need it now. The word is antecedent.

A pronoun always refers to an antecedent -- a noun or pronoun that has appeared earlier in the sentence or in a previous sentence.

Example: James Brown was a well-known singer and performer in the late 1960s, and his dancing was particularly entertaining." (James Brown is the antecedent of the pronoun his.)

Example: What specifically is a pronoun? It takes the place of a noun. (Pronoun is the antecedent to the pronoun It.)

You may be able to see already that it is important to figure out which word is the antecedent. The antecedent will control what number (singular or plural) of pronoun you use.

For instance, you wouldn't write: "The women are here and she wants to play bridge." Without some sentence going before this one to alert you to who "she" was, you would prefer the sentence to read: "The women are here and they want to play bridge."

That's an obvious example, but …

The tricky part

Sometimes the antecedent to a pronoun can be another pronoun. Especially when indefinite pronouns are used, it's important to know whether it's singular or plural.

INDEFINITE PRONOUNS

Always considered singular:

another	anything	every	everything	nobody	somebody
anybody	each	everybody	much	no one	someone
anyone	either	everyone	neither	nothing	something

Always considered plural:

both

few

many

others

several

Singular or plural, depending on use:

all

any

more

none

other

some

such

So, even though this is how just about everyone says it, you don't write:

Incorrect: Everyone at the party brought their own drinks.

Correct: Everyone at the party brought his own drinks.

Using the masculine pronoun when gender is either unknown or includes both male and female is called using the "generic he." The practice has become controversial. You can deal with the controversy in many ways, except by using a plural pronoun. That's just wrong.

In your own writing, it's best to avoid the problem if possible. For instance, you could write: "All the partygoers brought their own drinks." You've made the antecedent plural, so you can use a plural pronoun.

On the exams, though, you have to know when to use a singular pronoun. Your editor for this class (the instructor) has chosen to deal with the controversy by allowing you to use either singular pronoun, but not both.

CORRECT: Everyone at the party brought her own drinks.

OR: Everyone at the party brought his own drinks.

NOT: Everyone at the party brought his or her own drinks.

PRONOUN TYPES

So now you know about one type of pronoun -- the indefinite pronoun. You also know about personal pronouns. The most important thing to know about them is that you don't use first-person pronouns outside of quotations in standard journalistic writing.

Just as a reminder, here are the personal pronouns:

Case	Subjective	Objective	Possessive
Singular (number)
1st person	I	me	my, mine
2nd person	you	you	your, yours
3rd person	he, she, it	him, her, it	his, her, hers, its
Plural (number)
1st person	we	us	our, ours
2nd person	you	you	your, yours
3rd person	they	them	their, theirs

The tricky part

When you are using a pronoun as a predicate nominative (the pronoun following a linking verb and renaming the subject, as in "I am she") you must use the subjective case. Another way of knowing if you have used the right case is to turn the sentence around. "I am she; she is I." You wouldn't say "Her is I."

Notice in the table above that three properties of pronouns are identified there: case, number and person. Knowing that will help you understand some of the other pronoun rules.

MORE TYPES

There are actually eight types of pronouns in all. You've seen indefinite and personal.

Reciprocal pronouns (each other and one another) make for interesting reading if you've already mastered the rest of the pronouns, but we're not going to spend time on it in this class.

Demonstrative pronouns are easy -- there are only four (this and that, these and those). You have to know which are singular and which are plural and that's about it.

Interrogative pronouns are also easy because you're so familiar with them. They ask the questions. Who? Whom? Whose? Which? and What?

Your only real challenge is to remember that they rarely serve as the subject of a sentence even though they look like they do. For instance, "Who is the best point guard on the team?"

Who is not the subject. Point guard is the subject.

You can tell why this is important when you look at this sentence:

"Who are the best tackles on the team?"

Notice that the verb changed in number in this sentence from singular to plural. What other word changed from singular to plural? Point guard to tackles. Because it's the subject that determines the number of the verb, then you know that Who is not the subject of either sentence.

Of course, in English, there's always an exception. In these sentences, the interrogative pronoun is the subject:

Who is there? What's happening? Which is correct?

The trickiest part

The final kind of pronoun, the relative pronoun, brings in that old bugaboo, the who/whom conundrum. When do you use who and when do you use whom?

It's really a lot easier than you think. You could figure it out by deciding whether you need to use the subjective case (who) or the objective case (whom), but there's a simpler way.

Look at the sentence:

"He will give the prize to [whoever/whomever] deserves it."

Look just at the words following the relative pronoun. Then find the gap in those words -- what word would you need to fill in to make the sentence make sense?

In this sentence:

"…. deserves it."

Now, if you had to fill in the gap with either he or him, which would you use? You would use he, of course. "He deserves it."

If you would use he to fill the gap, use who or whoever. If you would use him to fill the gap, use whom or whomever.

So, the correct choice is "He will give the prize to whoever deserves it."

Now, try this one:

"She will go to the concert with [whoever/whomever] she likes."

Looking at only "she likes," the gap appears after the words:

"she likes ______." She likes he? NO. She likes him.

The correct use is "She will go to the concert with whomever she likes."

Finally, try these:

[Who/Whom] will win the election? (" ______ will win" "He will win")

Who will win the election?

[Who/Whom] is he meeting after class? ("he is meeting ______ after class."

"he is meeting him after class")

Whom is he meeting after class?

More relative pronouns

Who or whom is only used when you are talking about a human being (or a pet with a name). When you are writing about things, you use "which" or "that."

"Which" introduces a dependent clause that is nonessential to the sentence. The clause is set off by commas.

"That" introduces a dependent clause that is essential to the sentence. The clause is NOT set off by commas.

Whether a clause is essential or not is something we'll study later in the semester.

Possessive relative pronouns

Now that you have the who/whom trick so you don't have to really learn which relative pronoun is subjective and which is objective, and we've told you we won't be talking too much about essential and nonessential clauses until later, what's left?

The possessive relative pronoun.

Believe it or not, because there's no such word as "whichs," the "humanized" relative pronoun is used for inanimate possession too.

The woman whose husband spoke out left the room in tears.

The table whose leg is broken was removed from the room.

Finally, don't confuse whose with who's. Who's means "who is."

Back to FOJ menu