Pronouns Introduction

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The pronoun is the substitute teacher of the grammar world. It shows up in place of someone else, it does its very best, and people end up lying to it and telling it that their real name is Bubbles McGee and that a dolphin ate their homework.

Okay, it would be kind of hard to lie to a poor little pronoun.

A pronoun is a word that replaces or refers to a noun or another pronoun. The noun that a pronoun replaces is called its antecedent, and a pronoun absolutely, positively must agree with its antecedent.

Pronouns are extremely useful: without them, we'd have to repeat nouns over and over (and over and over and over and… well, you get the idea), which would make our sentences bulky and repetitive.

There are nine types of pronoun:

  • Personal
  • Possessive
  • Demonstrative
  • Reflexive
  • Intensive
  • Interrogative
  • Relative
  • Indefinite
  • Reciprocal

Yeah, you're gonna need a bigger pronoun boat.

Quiz Yourself on Pronouns

1/5

Which word belongs in the blank?


When we rode the roller coaster, I sat next to a girl _________ had the most piercing shriek I have ever heard. The next day I had to see the doctor because I thought I had lost my hearing. Unfortunately I was right.


(A) that
(B) who
(C) Both A and B
(D) None of the above

Choose the option that correctly fills in the blanks in the passage.


My girlfriend and ________ went to the convention center for the Everything Magic Expo. We volunteered for a performance, and the hypnotist uncovered all the problems between ________ and _________, sharing them with the large crowd. Talk about a good way to ruin the best date idea I'll ever have.


(A) I, her, me
(B) me, she, I
(C) I, she, me
(D) me, her, I

Fill in the blank:


Please meet me at the grocery store _________ roof has a giant sculpture of a smiling clown on it.


(A) whose
(B) that's
(C) which
(D) Both A and B

Fill in the blank:

On our family vacation, we visited Mt. Rushmore, four giant presidents' heads carved out of a rock, ___________was really fun.

(A) which
(B) that
(C) Neither of these
(D) Both of these

How could you rewrite this sentence to avoid using "they" as a singular pronoun?


When someone wants to organize their closet, they can find a lot of great space-saving products on infomercials.


(A) Change "someone wants to" to "people want to"
(B) Change "their" to "his or her" and "they" to "he or she"
(C) Change "someone," "their," and "they" to "you"
(D) All of the above

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