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Course: Grammar > Unit 3
Lesson 1: Introduction to pronounsWhat is a pronoun?
Pronouns are words that stand in for other words, such as nouns or phrases. Pronouns avoid repetition and make writing clear and concise. Examples of pronouns are she, he, they, and it, which can replace names or objects that have already been mentioned.
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At1:34, the 'he' is supposed to be capitalized.(57 votes)
It should be capitalized because it's the start of the sentence!(32 votes)
Hello Grammarians,
It's wonderful to meet you all after a long time. I just got stuck with doubts while forming sentences. As I always believe, I hope I'll get a solution here.
These are the sentences:
1. These are our days where the term 'sharing' has become almost virtual.
Is it wrong to use the pronoun 'where' after the noun 'days' in the above sentence? I am aware that 'where' denotes a place. And the word 'days' denotes a period of time. But it's bugging me whether or not to use the pronoun 'where' after 'a period of time' in a sentence. Kindly help me with this.
2. It is those people who actually contributed to the growth of this organization.
In this 2nd sentence, Is it okay to have the singular pronoun 'It' and the plural pronoun 'those' closely? Because, as the sentence starts with 'It is', one usually expects a singular noun to come next. But in this sentence 'It is' is followed by a plural pronoun 'those' and then a plural 'noun'. Is this sentence correct? If it is, is there any case that a singular pronoun can precede a plural pronoun?
Please help me.
Awaiting your response.
Cordially,
Vivek S(17 votes)
Dear Vivek,
Both of your sentences communicate clearly. Let that be your aim rather than the "rightness" or "wrongness" of your word choices.
In the first sentence, my first impression was that you might better choose "when" than "where", but in your explanation, you made a good point for a day as a "space". I liked that.
In your second sentence, the juxtaposition of "it" and "those" is somewhat jarring, but I sense that the sentence is mid-way through a paragraph where different sets of people have been set out, and the "it" refers to a particular set of people, not to a plural number.
You write well and communicate clearly.(17 votes)
Is it me or I? Which ones are correct?
Did you invite Billy and me?
Should Billy and I go to the store?
Me and Sally sent gifts.(9 votes)- For "Did you invite Billy and me?" Take out "Billy and" the answer will be clear.
For "Should Billy and I go to the store?" Do the same thing.
For "Me and Sally sent gifts." Take out "and Sally", the answer will be clear.(14 votes)
- 0:28, why isn't "worm" a pronoun?(2 votes)
Are THEM and SOMEBODY pronouns?(6 votes)
Yes, both of them are pronouns. “Them” is an object pronoun, and “somebody” is an indefinite pronoun.(7 votes)
Is "the" a noun? Because at0:23you put it as "the log" I was just wondering if it actually should have been just "log" as the noun or if it is a combo noun thing I guess . . . . Also is there such thing as "combo" nouns like "the log" if it even is a noun please reply David(5 votes)- No,
theis a special type of adjective called an article adjective. Go here to learn more:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/parts-of-speech-the-modifier/introduction-to-adjectives-and-articles/v/intro-to-articles-v1
P.S. In some cases, you might see something like a "combo noun," but they are usually reserved for proper nouns like places (likeMount Everest) and people (likeBarack Obama).(7 votes)
screw you 2022-23 you made me know what pronouns are before learning them(7 votes)- But if theres two people and theyre both the sane gender, wouldn't you have to use theyre names or no?(2 votes)
- Let's try this, starting from the idea that there are six people in the room: 2 identify as male, 2 as female, and 2 as non-binary.
If I'm among them, and saying something about all 6, I use the pronouns we and us.
If I'm not among them, and am speaking to all six, I use the pronoun "you".
If I'm not among them, and am referring to any combination of them from 2 persons to 6 persons, regardless of gender, I use the pronouns "they" and "them".
If I am referring to any single person among them, I should use the pronoun which that person prefers: they, she or he.(6 votes)
- What are some other pronouns?(3 votes)
- There are several lessons on pronouns. As you watch them, keep a list. Then you'll have them all.(5 votes)
why if you are drinking milk and you laugh why does it come out your nose?(3 votes)- It works that way with Dr. Pepper, too, and burns!(4 votes)
1:34
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians. We're going to start talking
about pronouns today, and of course that
begins with the question, What are pronouns? Allow me to answer that question
by way of a demonstration. Emma laughed so hard, milk
came out of Emma's nose. Zach lifted the log. Zach found a worm under the log. So, these sentences don't have pronouns, but what they do have is repeated nouns. Here we have Emma and
then we say Emma's again, and then we say Zach and the log, and then we say Zach and the log. But, people are smart, right? We have relatively long attention spans, and so if we start off a
sentence talking about Emma, and we're pretty sure that
we're still talking about Emma, we don't need to say that name twice. We don't need to say
Emma and then Emma again. So, what a pronoun does is it allows you to take out the unnecessary noun when we're very certain we
know what we're talking about. So you don't have to say
Emma a million times, you can replace Emma with her. Same thing applies to
the second two sentences. We don't have to keep on
mentioning Zach and the log when we know what we're talking about. So the first sentence would still read Zach lifted the log, but then in the second sentence we can replace the name Zach, since we already know
who we're talking about, with the word he, and we can
replace this little phrase, the log, with it, since we know
we're talking about the log. Now, words like her and he
and it are all pronouns. So, what are pronouns? They are words that
stand in for other words. Now, obviously, her, he, and it are not the only pronouns in English, but for now I just want
you to think about the idea that a pronoun is a word that
stands in for another word. You can learn anything. David out.