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Choosing the Correct Pronoun and Noun

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Nouns and pronouns can be either the subject or object of
sentences, which means they can come in two different cases.
KEY POINTS
Using the correct pronoun in your writing helps keep your writing clear and
accurate.
Pronouns have different forms depending on how they are used in a
sentence.
It is important to pay attention to which case you should use.
TERMS
object pronoun
In linguistics, an object pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used typically
as a grammatical object: the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object
of a preposition.
subject pronoun
A pronoun that is used as the subject of a sentence, such as "I", "he" or "we"
in English.
case
Grammatical cases and their meanings taken either as a topic in general or
within a specific language.
EXAMPLES
Additional examples:
Subject pronoun: She and I went to the store.
Object pronoun: The test was hard for her and me.
Subject pronoun: We threw the ball.
Object pronoun: Throw the ball to us!
Subject pronoun: Whoever knows the answer moves on to the next round.
Object pronoun: Bill tripped over whom?
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Choosing the Correct Pronoun and Noun Cases
Nouns and pronouns can be either the subject or object of sentences, which
means they can come in two different cases. There are two main things that
indicate case. The first is word order: subjects usually appear before verbs,
and objects usually appear after them. The other way of indicating case is that
some words change their forms depending on whether they are the subject or
the object of a sentence.
Most nouns remain the same in both the subjective and objective case. Here a
few examples:
The cat chased the mouse.
The dog chased the cat.
The bird perched on the dog.
As you can see, words like cat and dog are the same regardless of which
grammatical position they occupy. This makes it easy to choose the right form
for nouns, because in most situations there is only one. Pronoun cases are
trickier, because pronouns do change form depending on whether they are the
subject or the object of a sentence. The subject pronouns are as follows:
I,
you,
he,
she,
it,
we,
you,
they,
who,
whoever.
Here are the object pronouns:
me,
you,
him,
her,
it,
us,
you,
them,
whom,
whomever.
Before you use a pronoun, you should make sure you know which position it
occupies. Pay extra attention to sentences with multiple pronouns and
sentences where pronouns are part of a compound subject, since these are two
of the instances where most mistakes are made.
Incorrect: I thought that him and I were friends.
Correct: I thought that he and I were friends.
In the first sentence, the writer uses the object pronoun him. However, him is
not a direct object. Instead, the pronoun is the subject of a new clause, so the
proper form is he.
Incorrect: My mother and me love to go shopping.
Correct: My mother and I love to go shopping.
The incorrect example uses the object pronoun me because the writer assumes
that my mother is the subject. In reality, the pronoun is part of a compound
subject, so it should use the subject form I.
Figuring Out Which Case to Use
To figure out which case you need to use, you have to know whether the
pronoun is the subject or the object of the sentence. One way of determining
this is to try and rewrite the sentence with just the pronoun and verb. If those
two things alone can be made into a grammatically correct sentence while
retaining the same meaning, then the pronoun is the subject. If you cannot
form a grammatically correct sentence, then the pronoun is the object.
To test this out, consider the examples above. If the second incorrect example
was stripped down by removing the phrase my mother and, the resulting
sentence would be me loves to go shopping. This is clearly not correct.
Consequently, you know you need a subject pronoun.
Here's another example:
Incorrect: Since we were talking in class, the teacher punished my friend and
I.
Correct: Since we were talking in class, the teacher punished my friend and
me.
This is a tricky one because it uses pronouns to refer to the same people: the
writer and a friend, in two different clauses. The first clause uses we as a
subject. In the second clause, though, the teacher is one who is actively
punishing. You cannot rewrite it with just verb and pronoun without being
grammatically incorrect (the teacher punished I) or changing the meaning ( I
punished. ) The pronoun, then, should be me since it is an object rather than
the subject .

She and I
In this sentence, I and she are both subject pronouns.
The most frequent case error occurs with who and whom. A good test of which
case you should use is to require the sentence using another third-
personpronoun for who or whom. If you would use he, then the correct form
is who. If you would use him, the correct form is whom.
Example: The winner of the contest is the person who guessed the number of
jelly beans in the jar.
Rewrite: He guessed the number of jelly beans in the jar.
Since you would rewrite the sentence with a subject pronoun (since the winner
performs the action of guessing), the proper pronoun is who.
Example: You are the person whom I love most in all of the world.
Rewrite: I love him most in all of the world.
In this example, the speaker is the one performing the action (loving), so the
object pronoun whom should be used.

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