Most of us try to use proper grammar, but there are a few common blunders many people make. In fact, glaring pronoun errors are common in professionally-written text for television commercials, teleprompter speeches and well-rehearsed lines spoken by Academy Award-winning movie stars. Using a few simple tricks will help you remember how to use pronouns correctly.
Here's how to keep your writing and speech on track, rather than making silly pronoun mistakes.
1Before speaking aloud, test your new sentence silently to yourself: "Gary gave Barbara, Luke and I a new DVD."Ad
2Cut out all names and other nouns, leaving only pronouns:"He gave (to) I it." ("He gave it to I.").
3How does it sound? –Wrong!
4Pick your common sense choice, then reinsert all the words you removed to check the sentence: "Gary gave Barbara, Luke and me a new DVD."
5Say it aloud or write it with confidence that your grammar is correct.
6Know the rules. The subject pronouns "I," "he," "she," "we," and "they" perform verbs. For example: "I mowed the lawn." The object pronouns "me," "him," "her," "us," and "them" are the objects of verbs: verbs happen to them, and they also follow prepositions of which they are the object. For example: "I ate him," and "I gave it to him." The pronouns "it" and "you" can function as subject or object pronouns. The reflexive pronouns (themselves, ourselves, himself, itself, etc.) refer back to the subject of the clause, for example: "he bit himself," and "he did it by himself." Some can also emphasize the subject's role in the sentence, for example: "I myself will take on the challenge." Reflexive pronouns have other uses, which can be found in any dictionary.Ad
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- Before you speak or write a sentence that mentions more than one person and includes pronouns, remove all the people's and things' names, leaving only the pronoun(s). Here's an example. You're about to say or write, "Paul played piano for Mary, the twins and I."
- First, identify all pronouns. One pronoun is I, and he is the pronoun referring to Paul, the pianist.
- What pronoun should you use for Mary? She or Her?
- Silently, try this test: Listen to your sentence with only the sentence's beginning name or pronoun, as well as only one other pronoun. The example above then becomes, "John played piano for I."
- Suddenly, it's clear that something's wrong. You would naturally say, "John played piano for me."
- Some common pronouns are I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they and them.
- Remember: I, he, she, they and we can only be used as the subject of a sentence, which almost always falls at the start of the phrase.
- The same goes for them, they, we, us, and so forth.
- Here's an example with a subject, a direct object, and an indirect object. In other words, this sentence has three cases:
- "Bob gave Mary a book."
- The phrase's subject almost always comes first and answers the question, 'Who or what is doing something?' In this case, it's Bob.
- The direct object answers the question: 'Who or what is being acted upon?' Here, it is a book.
- The indirect object is the noun or pronoun which is acted for, by, to. of, from, with, about, over, under, through, against, or via some other preposition which precedes it.
- But beware: to is sometimes missing but implied. "Jack gave Jill the book" is actually "Jack gave the book to Jill.
- Frequently, the error involves confusing I with me. The use of I or me is dictated by the pronoun's case in the sentence, i.e. whether it's the subject of the phrase in question or not, not by the number of people mentioned.
- If the pronoun acts as the subject of the phrase, the only possibilities are I, you, it, he, she, we and they. On the other hand, if the pronoun is either the direct object or indirect object, the choice is between me, you, it, him, her, us and them.
- Remember: It makes no difference how much you load a sentence down with laundry lists of other people or "stuff." The rightness of I or me –or any pronoun– is absolute and doesn't change because of the number of people mentioned. Here's another example of a common blunder, which you can rapidly detect by omitting all nouns and using only pronouns:
- "Dad snapped a photo of Mike and she."
- Try the replacement test: Dad, a photo and Mike disappear.
- Would you say: "He snapped it of she” ?
- Never! Adding your cousin Albert, Aunt Gladys, Grandma Moses, George Washington and Betty White doesn't change the proper choice between she and her.
- By definition, pronouns can replace nouns. A noun may be a proper name such as Tom or Africa, a physical "thing" like a house, a cerebral idea like height, or a concept such as the word intelligence. In short, any thing can be represented by a pronoun.
- You is an oddball pronoun. It remains the same whether it's the subject or not in any sentence!
- An error seldom arises if there's only one "object" element in the sentence. For instance, here's a sentence which sounds unquestionably correct to us all: "Daddy Warbucks asked Mary to dinner."However, doubts and mistakes mysteriously slip in when an additional person is included by use of a pronoun, as for example here:
- "Daddy Warbucks asked Mary and I to dinner."
- The subject will never be preceded by a preposition, such as those listed above.
- Note: There are several additional part-time prepositions, such as before, which can double as adverbs in which case they may fall directly ahead of the sentence's or phrase's subject.
- Here's an example of before, used first as an adverb, then as a preposition:
- "Before I resign, I must confess before God and you..."
- So, when before, after and others are referring to a position in time instead of a physical location, they're called adverbs, not prepositions.
Categories: English Grammar
In other languages:
Español: Cómo usar correctamente pronombres en inglés, Italiano: Come Usare i Pronomi Correttamente, Русский: правильно употреблять местоимения в английском языке, Português: Como Usar Pronomes Corretamente em Inglês
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