Pronouns

Queen Victoria of England used to refer to herself in third-person: “The Queen wishes to take a walk.” Weird. Whatever happened to “I want to take a walk”?

Using pronouns reduces the use of nouns, which can start to sound repetitive and mechanical. Imagine if you had to use your name every time you referred to yourself. You’d sound as odd as Queen Victoria. “Please pass Mark the potatoes. Mark likes the potatoes. The potatoes are tasty.” If we replace the Marks with I, and a couple of the potatoes with them, things sound much more natural.

One of the pitfalls of pronouns is using the wrong one. Non-English speakers who are accustomed to a gender-neutral language find it difficult to keep he and she straight. It’s important, though: people get rather upset when you get their gender wrong.

• What Are Pronouns
• Uses of Pronouns
• Pronoun Case
• Types of Pronouns
• Demonstrative Pronouns
• Indefinite Pronouns
• Intensive Pronouns
• Interrogative Pronouns
• Object Pronouns
• Subject Pronouns
• Personal Pronouns
• Possessive Pronouns
• Reciprocal Pronouns
• Reflexive Pronouns
• Relative Pronouns
• Pronoun Reference
• Pronouns and Antecedents
• Who and Whom
• List of Pronouns