Perplexing Pronouns

Introduction

It’s easy to explain what a pronoun is: It’s a word used in place of a noun. Saying, “She ran away,” when you mean your cat, is an example of a pronoun in action. But using pro¬nouns correctly can be tricky, because they come in different types, and some of these types come in a variety of forms, so that before you know it, you can’t even explain where you’ve been all day. Is it, “Joe invited Bill and me to play golf”? Or “Bill and I”?
In this chapter, we’ll focus mainly on three areas of par¬ticular difficulty:

First, the cases of certain pronouns and how to tell which you should use. This is the “I” vs. “me” and “who” vs. “whom” stuff that gives many of us so much trouble.
Second, the two relative pronouns “which” and “that” and how to choose between them.
And third, the overly popular intensive or reflex¬ive pronouns, such as “myself” or “himself,” and how to avoid putting them where they don’t belong.

A Lesson on Pronoun Cases

Personal pronouns and a couple of relative pronouns vary in form according to person and number (as discussed in the Grammar Review) and according to case as well. The three cases are the subjective case (sometimes called the nomina¬tive case), the objective case, and the possessive case. You choose between them according to the role you’re asking the pronoun to take on in a sentence.

For a basic illustration, let’s say you’re referring to your¬self and your ownership of a book. You might say I own that book or That book belongs to me or That book is mine. In those three sentences we used the first-person singular pro¬nouns “I,” “me,” and “mine.” In each instance, of course, you’re referring to yourself, but the form of the pronoun you use to do it changes. In the first sentence, I own that book, you are the subject of the sentence and identified by the pronoun “I.” “I” is the subjective case. In the second sentence, That book be¬longs to me, the subject is “that book,” and you, the owner, are now the object of the preposition “to,” and you’re identified by the pronoun “me.” “Me” is the objective case. And in the third sentence, That book is mine, you, the owner, have an adjecti¬val role indicated by the pronoun “mine.” “Mine” is the posses¬sive case.

Here are the case forms for each of the personal pronouns— and the two relative pronouns that take different case forms. The pronouns themselves are familiar, of course, but watch how they sort themselves according to case, and notice that some of the forms do not vary.





How do you determine the correct case for a given pro¬noun? There are a bunch of little rules that cover less common situations, but the basic guidelines are:

Use the subjective case when…

❑ The pronoun is the subject of the verb.
In other words, when the pronoun is the person or thing that commits the action.
I, we, you, he, she, it, they ran away.

❑ The pronoun follows a finite form of the verb “to be” (any form of “to be” except the infinitive form with the “to” in front of it).
In other words, use the subjective case if the pronoun is the complement of the linking verb “to be” (see the Grammar Re¬view for more on this concept):
They believed that the thief was I, you, he, she.
They believed that the thieves were we, you, they.
Use the objective case when…

❑ The pronoun is the object of a verb.
The pronoun “receives” the action in the sentence: it isn’t do¬ing anything, but something is being done to it:
The search team found me, him, her, it, us, you, them.

❑ The pronoun is the indirect object of a verb.
The pronoun is the person or thing for whom (or for which) something is being done:

Bob gave me, him, her, us, you, them all the zucchini in his garden.

❑ The pronoun is the subject of an infinitive.
This is different from being the subject of the whole sentence, in which you’d use the subjective case. In the following sen¬tence, “the boss” is the subject of the main verb, “told,” but “me” (or one of the other pronoun choices) is the subject of the verb “to do,” which is being used in this sentence in its infinitive form, with the “to” in front:

The boss told me, him, her, us, you, them to do it.

❑ The pronoun is the object of an infinitive.
This means the pronoun is identifying someone on the receiv¬ing end of the action expressed by the infinitive. Remember, the infinitive is not the main verb in this sentence, it’s a second¬ary part of the predicate:

The judge wanted to believe me, him, her, it, us, you, them.

❑ The pronoun is the object of a preposition.
Put the blanket over me, you, him, her, it, us, them.

Use the possessive case when…

❑ The pronoun itself is being used to indicate possession.

My, your, her, his, our, their toaster.