Pronoun Reference Rules

Pronouns are words that stand in for a noun in a sentence. Whenever pronouns are used, it should be unmistakably clear which noun the pronoun is standing in for. A faulty pronoun reference will result in a muddled sentence and a confused reader.

A pronoun is like an actor’s double on a movie set: it is a simplified version of the noun it is standing in for.

The mother called the daughter.

The mother called her.

Her is a pronoun representing the daughter in a simple construction that causes no confusion. Consider this more complex sentence, however:

The mother called the daughter back to clean up her mess.

Did the daughter forget to do her dishes? Was the mother a slob who thought her daughter should clean up after her? Which person does the pronoun her refer to? This faulty pronoun reference can be easily corrected:

When the daughter made a mess, the mother called her back to clean it up.

Even with two pronouns, the references in this sentence are clear. Here is another example of a faulty pronoun reference.

Separate Daniel and Alexander and then give him a detention for fighting.

Here it is unclear to whom the pronoun him refers. Who is to be punished for fighting? Using the original noun will clarify things for the reader.

Separate Daniel and Alexander and then give Daniel a detention for fighting.

Poor Daniel; he appears to be the guilty party in this encounter, but at least the sentence is clear.

Between vs. Among—What’s the Difference?

• Use between when referring to one-to-one relationships.
• Use among when referring to indistinct or nonspecific relationships.

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We already touched on the difference between between and among when we talked about the difference between among and amongst. But let’s take a closer look at these two commonly confused words. We might even dispel a grammar myth in the process.

When to Use Between

There’s a common and oddly persistent belief that between should be used only when there are two elements, and among should be used when there are more than two elements. But this rule is a myth—or, to be more charitable, it’s a great oversimplification. You can use between when there are more than two elements involved:

He had to choose between a bicycle, a train set, a pair of sneakers, and a new backpack for his birthday present.

In fact, you can use between for any number of elements, as long as all the elements are separate and distinct. According to The Chicago Manual of Style, you can even use between when “multiple one-to-one relationships are understood from the context”:

Negotiations between the member states collapsed last night.

When describing spatial relationships, between usually means in the middle of something, or in the space restricted by something:

He drove too quickly between the cars.

When to Use Among

Among is used when talking about people or things that are not distinct and are viewed as a group:

There wasn’t much unity among the council members.

Among could indicate that something belongs to a group:

She only ever felt comfortable when she was among her friends.

When referring to spatial relationships, among tells us that something is surrounded by something else:

Paula always wanted to go swimming among dolphins.

Examples

Palumbo Group is planning on creating an offshore hub between Malta and Tenerife and strengthening collaboration between the two islands following talks it had with Tenerife’s port authority president this week.

Times of Malta

In my last article I wrote about the difference between AI and Machine Learning (ML).

Forbes

The 59th Annual Grammy nominees were announced Tuesday morning, and while familiar names appeared among the five Latin music categories, there were also some nice surprises.

NPR

Among the big-ticket items, one that is set to put a spell on buyers is that of Walt Disney’s last will and testament.

CNBC

Possessive Pronouns: Rules and Examples

Possessive pronouns show that something belongs to someone. The possessive pronouns are my, our, your, his, her, its, and their. There’s also an “independent” form of each of these pronouns: mine, ours, yours, his, hers, its, and theirs. Possessive pronouns are never spelled with apostrophes.

Possessive pronouns simplify constructions that show possession of a noun.

Jane takes pride in Jane’s outfits.

It sounds odd to use Jane’s name twice in this sentence. A possessive pronoun solves the problem:

Jane takes pride in her outfits.

Thus, possessive pronouns are quite handy and are used frequently in the English language.

My plane is delayed.

Your dinner is ready.

Could you bring his tea out to him?

Remember not to judge a book by its cover.

I would have knocked on their door, but I heard their baby crying.

Independent Possessive Pronouns

Independent possessive pronouns (also called absolute possessive pronouns) must be used without a noun.

My phone is dead. Pass me yours.

Did you know that Labrador is mine?

The house on the corner is theirs.

As you can see, it is common to see independent possessive pronouns at the ends of clauses or phrases.

A Common Mistake: Its vs. It’s

A very common error is putting an apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its. It is easy to confuse its with the contraction of it is, it’s, which does have an apostrophe. Remember, though, possessive pronouns never use apostrophes.

The boat lost it’s mast in the storm.

The boat lost its mast in the storm.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

If you think about the rules for possessive pronouns for a split second every time you write its or it’s, you will never make this mistake again.

This Week in Writing, 8/29-9/4

Happy Friday! Once again it’s time for our weekly roundup of stories about writing, books, and authors. Have something you’d like to see us cover here? Let us know in the comment section!

Our Favorite Stories:

1 Tips for Aspiring Writers in 12 Infographics (Ebook Friendly)

2 Writing Tips from a Supreme Court Justice (Time)

3 J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Trivia Tweets (Salon)

4 Good Grammar Can Keep You Out of Trouble (Grammarly)

Staff Book Picks of the Week:

The Shepherd’s Crown (Fiction) Terry Pratchett

“Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novel, and the fifth to feature the witch Tiffany Aching. Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength.”

On the Move: A Life (Nonfiction) Oliver Sacks

“On the Move is the story of a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer—and of the man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human.”

Author & Illustrator Birthdays:

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley – August 30, 1797 Virginia Lee Burton – August 30, 1909 Robert Crumb – August 30, 1943 Malcolm Gladwell – September 3, 1963 Richard Wright – September 4, 1908

What Are Ghost Words?

Do you know what a dord is? No? Well, don’t try looking it up in the dictionary, unless the dictionary is Webster’s Second New International Dictionary of 1934. This strange little word appeared only in that one edition, and it spent a whole five years there, happily, before being discovered as a fake. You see, “dord” isn’t a real word, even though it appeared in a dictionary. It was the result of someone misreading a note written by Austin M. Paterson, Webster’s chemistry editor at the time. The note said “D or d, cont./density,” and it referred to the uppercase letter D (or lowercase d) being used as an abbreviation for density. “D or d” became “dord,” a word that meant “density,” and the best-known example of a ghost-word—a word that, in fact, isn’t a word at all.

The Oxford Dictionary defines ghost word as “a word recorded in a dictionary or other reference work which is not actually used.” Merriam-Webster says a ghost word is “a word form never in established usage.” The term was coined by Professor Walter William Skeat in 1886, well before dord came into existence. In a yearly address to the London Philological Society, Skeat took the opportunity to call out several erroneous words. These included abacot, the misspelling of “a bycoket” (a type of headwear); kimes, which came about as the misspelling of “knives”; and morse, which was a misspelling of “nurse.”

Ghost words existed even before Skeat pointed the phenomenon out. Phantomnation appeared in the 1864 Webster’s Dictionary. It was described as a rare word meaning “appearance of a phantom, illusion,” and it was attributed to the poet Alexander Pope. Pope did indeed have something to do with it, as his Odyssey contains the verse “all the phantom nations of the dead,” but it was a man named Richard Paul Jodrell who, in his practice of solidifying two-word phrases into one (he also coined the word “islandempress,” among many others), made “phantom nation” into a single word and published it in his 1820 book Philology of the English Language.

The 1755 Johnson’s Dictionary defined the word foupe as “to drive with a sudden impetuosity” and noted that the word was out of use. And it was out of use, because it never really existed—it was a product of misreading the word soupe, written with a long s. And soupe was a rare word indeed—it meant “swoop.” The same dictionary also had an entry for adventine, which was a misprint in a Francis Bacon work—the actual word was “adventive.”

Sometimes, ghost words appear in dictionaries on purpose, even though in that case they are called by another name: nihilartikel. Esquivalence is such a word—it was a false entry in the New Oxford American Dictionary. The word was invented by Christine Lindberg, one of the NOAD editors, who defined it as “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities.” The whole thing was part of the dictionary’s strategy for copyright protection. And nihilartikel is a nihilartikel itself—the word originated in a false entry in the German-language Wikipedia. Talk about wordception.