Pronouns take the place of nouns and as a result they can do all the things nouns can do; they can be subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, and more. The problems with pronouns often come when the writer is not clear about whom the pronoun is referring to. Consider the following:
Last night, the suspect was charged with hitting a fellow diner and knocking them to the floor. I spoke to E. J. and Pat earlier today, and I asked her if she had been there when it happened. She said that after the incident, the conversation between the other diners and she centered around thinking about whom would be questioned by the police. All the people who were discussing this they finally decided that if you were there, you probably were going to be questioned.
Can you point out what’s wrong in this paragraph? The story has examples of several common pronoun problems:
• A plural pronoun that refers to a singular antecedent
• A pronoun that isn’t clear about which antecedent it refers to
• Pronouns that shift points of view in the same sentence
• A pronoun that’s not needed
• A pronoun that’s in the wrong case
• Confusion about when to use who and whom
Maybe it’s time to take a look at these pesky pronoun problems. Pronouns, as you know, are words that take the place of nouns. Common pronouns include:
• herself
• both
• me
• itself
• each
• you
• ourselves
• either
• he
• yourselves
• everybody
• him
• themselves
• everyone
• she
• this
• everything
• her
• that
• few
• it
• these
• little
• us
• those
• many
• they
• who
• most
• them
• whom
• much
• mine
• which
• neither
• yours
• whose
• no one
• hers
• what
• nobody
• his
• all
• none
• theirs
• another
• nothing
• ours
• any
• one
• myself
• anybody
• other
• yourself
• anyone
• others
• himself
• anything
• several
• some
• somebody
• someone
Pronouns must agree in number with the words to which they refer (their antecedents). Read these sentences:
After I read the letters, I tossed it in the wastebasket.
After I read the letters, I tossed them in the wastebasket.
The first sentence doesn’t make sense because it is the wrong pronoun. The noun that it refers to is letters, and letters is a plural noun. The pronoun used to replace it should also be plural. In the second sentence, it has been replaced by them, which is plural. That’s why the second sentence makes sense.
Put another way, the rule is this: If a pronoun is plural, the word it refers to (also known as its antecedent) must be plural; if a pronoun is singular, the word it refers to must be singular.
So what’s the problem? Complications arise where some of the indefinite pronouns are concerned.
Indefinite pronouns include the following:
• all
• everyone
• none
• another
• everything
• nothing
• any
• few
• one
• anybody
• little
• other
• anyone
• many
• others
• anything
• most
• several
• both
• much
• some
• each
• neither
• somebody
• either
• no one
• someone
• everybody
• nobody
• something
Anyone, anybody, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, nobody, none, no one, one, somebody, something, and someone are all considered to be singular words, so they all require a singular pronoun. But, if you think about it, the word each implies more than one. If each person is doing something, that means more than one, right? The same can be said for everybody, everything, and everyone. This doesn’t matter; all four words are considered singular. So you should write:
Everybody is seated, and each is waiting for the plane to take off. Each of the dogs needs its collar before it can be enrolled in obedience school.
Everyone must bring a list of her prenatal vitamins. (Using only her in this sentence is perfectly fine since no men would be taking prenatal vitamins.)
A common tendency in everyday speech is to use they or their in place of some singular pronouns. In the first example, you might hear the sentence spoken this way:
Everybody is seated, and they are waiting for the plane to take off.
This usage is called the “singular they” because they refers to an antecedent that’s singular.
Even though using the “singular they” is becoming more commonplace, its usage is still frowned on in many circles. However, this may be one of the rules of grammar that eventually changes. The advocates of the “singular they” point out that using it helps prevent an overuse of his or her or he or she.
Now it’s time to break a rule. Remember the one that says to disregard any prepositional phrase when you’re looking for the subject of a sentence? Well, this rule has a few exceptions. (This is also discussed in Chapter 8 about subject-verb agreement.) Take a look at these two sentences:
All of the money is missing from the safe.
All of the cookies are missing from the jar.
In both sentences, the subject is all. But the first sentence has a singular verb and the second sentence has a plural verb—and both are correct.
With five pronouns (all, any, most, none, and some), the “disregard the prepositional phrase” rule is canceled out. For those five pronouns, look at the object of the preposition to determine which verb to use.
Grammar Facts
When you have compound antecedents that are joined by or or nor (or either . . . or, neither . . . nor), make the pronoun agree with the one that’s closer to the verb. Here’s an example:
Either the lion or the monkeys have already gotten their food.
Since monkeys is plural and it comes nearer the pronoun, use the plural pronoun their.
Either the monkeys or the lion has already gotten its food.
Since lion is singular and it comes nearer the pronoun, use the singular pronoun its.
So, do you think you can pinpoint the mistake in the following paragraph? Pronouns and their antecedents should agree in number.
When I came down to breakfast, everybody in the family was eating, but nobody offered me even a piece of toast. At work, everyone was busy doing their different projects; they didn’t even stop to look up when I came in.
By changing the incorrect pronouns, you should have:
When I came down to breakfast, everybody in the family was eating, but nobody offered me even a piece of toast. At work, everyone was busy doing his or her different projects; they didn’t even stop to look up when I came in.
You can see, though, that there’s a definite problem with that rewriting. While it may be grammatically correct, it sure doesn’t read well. Contrary to rules of thirty or more years ago, using his or her rather than just his is now considered correct. But as you can see in the corrected paragraph, this can make for some rather awkward writing.
So what can you do to prevent this awkwardness? Rewriting the sentences to use plural nouns and pronouns instead of singular ones is far better. The paragraph could be rewritten this way:
When I came down to breakfast, all of my family were already eating, but nobody offered me even a piece of toast. At work, all of my associates were already busy doing their different projects; they didn’t even stop to look up when I came in.
Much better, isn’t it?