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

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Choose the option that is grammatically correct.

(A) Whomever bought me three dozen roses is a really sweet person. Too bad they didn't include a note.
(B) I will call on whoever I see staring out the window. I have zero patience for daydreamers!
(C) Whoever actually enjoys eating limes has a problem. The thought of biting into a lime makes my eyes water.
(D) I have struggled with it my entire life, so I am always impressed by whomever can throw a tight spiral.

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

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

One of your classmates is presenting her project titled "An Exposition on my Awesomely Abnormal Family." You must admit, she's doing a good job, and her family truly does sound abnormal. However, you happen to notice a grammatical error in her speech. Where did she go wrong?

(A) My great uncle, who I always love to hang out with, claims that the movie Ghostbusters was loosely based on his life.
(B) My big brother, who happens to be the biggest nerd on earth, will be attending Geek Squad University next year. Well, the official name is Einstein Tech, but I like my name better.
(C) My grandfather, who was once a circus clown, was sued multiple times for child endangerment. He always called it an occupational hazard, but I have no idea what that means.
(D) My cousin, who chose to become a nuclear power plant janitor, caused everyone to leave my birthday party last year by talking about the latest accident at her factory.

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

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