Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part XIV—Interrogative

Interrogative pronouns—who, whom, whose, which, and what—introduce questions.
Who Vs. Whom
Who is in subjective case. It can be used in two situations: as the subject of a verb or as the predicate nominative after a linking verb:
Who hosted a Halloween party this year?
It was who?
Whom is in objective case. It can also be used in two [...]

Usage Thursday: Top Nine Misused Words

One of my oldest, dearest friends uses the word irregardless. She is smart and highly educated, yet insists on using this non-word. Should I correct her? Cracked.com says yes and lists eight other words that don’t mean what we think they do with advice on whether it’s worth insisting people use them the right way. [...]

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part XIII—Demonstrative

This, that, these, and those are demonstrative pronouns—or, if you want to get fancy about it, deictic pronouns—that identify or point directly to their antecedents.
This and that are used for singular antecedents:
This is my professional blog about “finding the right words.”
That is my personal blog about staycationing in Los Angeles.
These and those are used for [...]

Do You Have a G.O.D. Complex?

That is, do you suffer from Grammar Obsessive Disorder?

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part XI—Indefinitely (It)

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part XI—Indefinitely (It)
It is SAT season, and one of the rules I emphasize with my students as they prepare for the test is that personal pronouns always need to have a clear antecedent. (Two exceptions, even on the SAT, are I and you, whose antecedents—the person speaking or writing and the [...]

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part VIII—Infinitives

Quickie post today since it’s Labor Day!
When a pronoun is used with an infinitive—i.e., to plus a verb’s root or stem—use objective case. This rule holds true whether the pronoun is the object of the infinitive or the subject:
Jeff wanted me to accompany him to his stepbrother’s wedding this weekend.
The morning after the ceremony, Jeff’s [...]

Usage Thursday: E.G. and I.E.

The abbreviated Latin terms e.g. and i.e. are often confused and used incorrectly. E.g. stands for exempli gratia, which means “for example.” I.e. stands for id est, which means “that is” or, put another way, “in other words.” The two abbreviations have distinct meanings and should not be used interchangeably:
Jeff and I are traveling to [...]

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part VII—Something Personal Between You and Me

Even my sharpest students get tripped up by compounds involving pronouns. As soon as we simplify the sentence, however, removing the rest of the compound phrase and isolating the pronoun, the correct usage becomes clear. Don’t let compounds and other complex sentence structures complicate your use of the correct pronoun case.
As discussed last week, if [...]

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part VI—On the Case

Usually when we talk about pronouns, what immediately come to mind are personal pronouns—I, you, he, she, it, etc.—that refer to specific people or things. As discussed over the past couple of weeks, pronouns, like nouns, have four properties—number, person, gender, and case. Having already discussed the first three properties, let’s turn our attention to [...]

Monday Morning Grammar: Pronouns Part V—Gender, Plus “They” as a Gender-Neutral Singular Pronoun

As discussed over the last couple of weeks, pronouns, like nouns, have four properties—number, person, gender, and case—and should agree with their antecedents in number, person, and gender. We’ve already talked about how pronouns agree with their antecedents in number and person, and so far it’s been pretty straightforward. Gender agreement, too, seems obvious, but [...]