Prickly Pronouns

Chapter One: Subjects and Objects

Before I can explain when to choose "I" and when to choose "me" (and when to choose "who" or "whom"), we need to talk about objects. Not all sentences have them, but you should be able to recognize them when they come along.

The subject is doing something in the sentence. The object is having something done to it.

That buffoon pinched me.

Subject: that buffoon (the one pinching)
Object: me (the one being pinched)

Her stained glass window colors the carpet.

Subject: her stained glass window (the one coloring)
Object: the carpet (the one being colored)

Maria sang "Ave Maria."

Subject: Maria (the one singing)
Object: "Ave Maria" (the one being sung)

Always a perfectionist, Louis scolded himself daily.

Subject: Louis (the one scolding)
Object: himself (the one being scolded)

Got it? Okay, we're now going to use your knowledge of objects to resolve the most popular pronoun problems.

A pronoun is a part of speech, a type of noun that stands in for a regular noun. Without pronouns, we would get sentences like this:

Trista aimed for the bullseye, but when Tricia pulled back Tricia's arm, Tricia realized Tricia's bow was broken.

Not very pretty, is it? Luckily we have pronouns that can make this sentence so much cleaner:

Tricia aimed for the bullseye, but when she pulled her arm back, she realized her bow was broken.

There are many kinds of pronouns, but for now we're going to focus on a few specific ones: subject pronouns and object pronouns.

Subject Pronouns

Not surprisingly, subject pronouns function as the subjects of verbs. They are the ones doing the action. The subject pronouns are: I, you, he, she, it, we, and they.

I love Spain.

You stink a bit.

Colin knew where he would go.

Amy is back, and she is smiling.

The landlord put the figurine on the radio, but it fell off.

We were followed by the FBI.

Who knows what they think?

Object Pronouns

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