Pronouns

Pronouns stand in for nouns. There are gendered singular pronouns (he/him and she/her), a neutral/non-human pronoun (it/its), and a plural neutral pronoun (they/their).

Most audiences expect the use of singular pronouns with singular nouns and the plural pronoun with plural nouns.

Katie is pleased with her spring courses.

The boy told his mother he was tired.

The children said they were not to blame.

We do not have a widely accepted pronoun that we can use in situations where the subject gender is a combination of masculine and feminine, or is unknown; however, there are grammatical options:

·         Use a combination of gendered pronouns

                 A customer is required to turn off his or her phone upon reaching the checkout.

                 If the student does well in the class, he or she may be asked to act as a tutor next semester.

·      Make the subject of the sentence plural

                  Customers are required to turn off their phones upon reaching the checkout.

                  If students do well in the class, they may be asked to act as tutors next semester.

“They/Their” as singular pronouns

Language evolves (albeit slowly) in response to society’s needs. Today’s evolutional call is to define gender not as binary but as flowing along a feminine/masculine spectrum. Such a call requires writers to consider a singular gender-neutral pronoun. Some have chosen “they/their” as this pronoun, a choice that results in sentences such as this:

Sam is majoring in Biology; however, they hope to pursue a minor in English to feed their love for Victorian fiction. 

There are two points for you to bear in mind when choosing pronouns:

• your decision should be predicated on your audience’s expectations.

• standard noun/pronoun agreement rules apply when gender is clearly either masculine or feminine.

its/it’s

its = possessive pronoun that must be followed by a noun belonging to (possessed by) it

it’s = contraction (or contracted form) of it is

Mixing up these two words is one of the most common errors in written English. Because we so strongly associate apostrophes with possessives, it just seems logical that a possessive meaning “belonging to it” would have an apostrophe. Wrong!

The possessive pronoun its has no apostrophe, just like all the other possessive pronouns: his, her, our, your, their

It’s with an apostrophe

always

         always

                     only

                                 means “it is”!

It’s hard to say what its best feature is.

that/which/who?

   All three are relative pronouns; that is, they relate the clauses they introduce to a noun in another clause.

Two kinds of distinctions are involved here: one between references to persons and references to things and another between  restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses (see also the last part of #4 commas).

That usually refers to things, most often in restrictive (identifying) clauses.

    The thing that made me change my mind was her enthusiasm.

Which always refers to things, most often in nonrestrictive (parenthetical) clauses.

     Her enthusiasm, which made me change my mind, was extraordinary.

Who refers to people, in either restrictive or nonrestrictive clauses.

    The person who has that information isn’t here today. (restrictive)

    Ms. Smith, who has that information, isn’t here today. (nonrestrictive)