What Are Personal Pronouns?

A personal pronoun is a short word we use as a simple substitute for the proper name of a person. Each of the English personal pronouns shows us the grammatical person, gender, number, and case of the noun it replaces. I, you, he, she, it, we they, me, him, her, us, and them are all personal pronouns.

Personal pronouns are the stunt doubles of grammar; they stand in for the people (and perhaps animals) who star in our sentences. They allow us to speak and write with economy because they enable us to avoid repeating cumbersome proper nouns all the live-long day.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in South Africa and Bishop Desmond Tutu rose to international fame in the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bishop Desmond Tutu in 1984. Bishop Desmond Tutu has written seven books and has cowritten or contributed to many others.

With personal pronouns, this paragraph becomes much easier, and much less annoying, to read.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in South Africa and he rose to international fame in the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in 1984. He has written seven books and has cowritten or contributed to many others.

First-, Second-, and Third-Person Pronouns

A personal pronoun can be in one of three “persons.” A first-person pronoun refers to the speaker, a second-person pronoun refers to the person being spoken to, and a third-person pronoun refers to the person being spoken of. For each of these three grammatical persons, there is a plural as well.

Subject and Object Pronouns

Personal pronouns can be either subjects or objects in a sentence. Subject pronouns are said to be in the nominative case, whereas object pronouns are said to be in the objective case.

Person	Nominative	Objective
First singular	I	me
Second singular	you	you
Third singular	he, she, it	him, her, it
First plural	we	us
Second plural	you	you
Third plural	they	them

The interrogative pronouns for all three persons are the same: who (nominative) and whom (objective). Many people get confused about when to use the interrogative objective pronoun whom, but it is quite easy to learn.

Mrs. Khan asked that the package be delivered to her at the office. (her = third person singular objective)

To whom should I address my letter? (whom = interrogative objective; I = first person singular nominative)

We would like to invite Stacy to join us for dinner. (we = first person plural nominative; us = first person plural objective)

Y’all Got a Problem? Second Person Singular vs. Plural

One pitfall of English is that it uses the same word, you, for both the second person singular and plural. Many other languages do not have this problem, because they use distinct words for each. But in English, we need a context to determine whether you is singular or plural.

Would you like to come over for dinner?

From this sentence alone, we can’t determine whether one person, or two, or five hundred people are being invited to share a meal. This is why in some parts of the world, we hear additions to you when a plural is indicated, like you lot in the UK or you all (or y’all) in America. It probably goes without saying that you should keep this out of your formal writing.

The Latest in Grammatical Debates: The Singular “They”

While the second person has a number issue, the third person has a gender issue that is hotly debated by editors around the globe. The problem occurs in cases when the gender of the third-person singular pronoun is indeterminate.

Using he or she and him or her is preferred by most style guides, but informally, a singular they is often used.

If a customer wants to speak to a manger, they can phone after 10 o’clock.

While your English teacher might lose his or her mind over this sentence, the singular they was recently deemed acceptable usage by the Associated Press. That said, until it becomes more widely accepted, you should avoid it in formal writing.

Grammar Basics: What Are Nondefining Clauses?

There are two types of relative clauses—defining and nondefining. To review, relative clauses can contain a subject, verb, and a relative pronoun, though not all are needed. The relative pronouns are who, whose, when, where, which, and that. Relative clauses are sometimes called adjective or adjectival clauses because they describe nouns like adjectives do. Defining clauses give essential information about the main noun. Often, they answer the question: “Which one?” If you haven’t already guessed, nondefining clauses do not define nouns. But what do they do?

Nondefining relative clauses provide supplementary information. However, the information is not key to the meaning of the sentence. In fact, the sentence would still make sense if you removed the nondefining clause. Look at these example sentences with and without nondefining clauses.

The country of Costa Rica has extensive measures in place to protect endangered rainforest animals. (This sentence does not have a relative clause.)

The country of Costa Rica, where extinct species such as the golden toad once thrived, has extensive measures in place to protect endangered rainforest animals. (The nondefining clause “where extinct species such as the golden toad once thrived” tells us more about Costa Rica, but nothing that is essential to understanding of the sentence.)

Besides the type of information added (essential vs. nonessential), the use of commas is different between the two types of clauses. Commas set off nondefining clauses from the rest of the sentence. Defining clauses do not need commas.

Was your guess correct? Celebrate by adding some nondefining clauses to your writing. They add supplementary information. They are not essential, but they can be quite interesting.

Which Writing Style Actually Makes You Open an Email?

What are your writing resolutions?

This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.

Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!

If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.

When Should I Use Inquire vs. Enquire?

• Traditionally, enquire simply meant “ask,” while inquire was used for formal investigations.
• In the UK, the two words are used interchangeably, although inquire is still the more commonly used word for formal or official investigations.
• In the United States, inquire is the strongly preferred spelling in all uses.

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For the most part, you can use either enquire or inquire and not make a mistake. These two words, however, have traditionally been used in a slightly different way, at least in the UK, which kind of makes them a pair of commonly confused words.

When to Use Inquire?

Inquire is what you’ll usually see in American English. It means “to ask” or “to investigate”:

We went to the mall to inquire about a job.

In British English, inquire has traditionally been used for formal or official investigations and queries:

We asked Lord Roundbottom to inquire into the matter of the new football stadium.

Today, the word inquire is also used in British English in the way it’s used in American English, to denote a general query.

When to Use Enquire?

Enquire is mostly used in British English for the general meaning “to ask” or “to investigate”:

I’ll go to Phil and enquire about the chances of getting a raise.

While inquire is also often used in the same sense as enquire in British English, it doesn’t usually go the other way around—enquire is rarely used for an official investigation or query.

Examples

This one will throw you for a loop: The Nationals have inquired with the Blue Jays about outfielder Jose Bautista’s availability, according to The Post’s Barry Svrluga.

CBS DC

However, he defended the regulator’s right to inquire whenever it felt that circumstances required it and suggested more use might be made of the BHA’s review function.

The Guardian

Go and check it out before you book – talk to management and staff, look at the dogs’ quarters, enquire about feeding and exercise routines and see how the people there interact with your dog.

Stuff

Grammar Snob App Allows You to Correct Your Friends’ Texts

If you’ve ever fantasized about wielding a red pencil that could correct grammatical mistakes in the text messages you receive, you’re in for a treat. There’s a new app on iTunes called Grammar Snob, and it gives you the ability to correct grammatical mistakes in texts. All you need to do is download it, wait until you receive a text message containing one of the mistakes covered by the app, place a corresponding sticker over the mistake, and hit send. The person you’re sending the message to will receive their original message with a correction written over it in red pencil.

So far, the app has several limitations. For one, it works with iOS 10 only, so anyone who doesn’t use that operating system won’t be in on all the grammar-checking fun. Android users have yet to experience the evolution of smartphone-facilitated grammar snobbery. There’s also the fact that the range of typos and grammatical mistakes you can correct with the app is limited, although we’ve already seen an expansion of the original base of errors covered by the app.

Plus, and this shouldn’t be overlooked, the app gives you the power to be super annoying. So we’re here to warn you, just as Uncle Ben warned Spiderman, that this app gives you great power, and with great power comes great responsibility: the responsibility of not being a jerk.

We’ve covered grammar snobbery on this blog before. Most of the people reading this probably know how annoying it can be when someone latches onto a grammatical mistake and completely disregards the point of the conversation in which it was made. Some of us have been trolled by grammar snobs whose only goal was to make us lose our cool. Yes, these things are going to happen with or without the Grammar Snob app. The difference is that with the app you can correct people’s mistakes as a teacher would correct a paper, which might make it even more annoying.

Not that grammar doesn’t matter. In some situations, your ability to use proper grammar can make the difference between getting a job or not. It can also affect your grades in school. It can even affect your success on dating websites. But in some situations, for instance when you’re texting with your friends or family, you need to weigh the benefits of correcting someone’s grammatical mistakes against the likelihood of seriously annoying that person. Usually, you’ll find that it’s more important to not be a jerk than it is to correct all the “their, there, they’re” mistakes you come across—no matter how irritating they are.

That being said, the app can be very useful, and it can be very fun. You might really need to correct the spelling and grammar in someone’s message. Heck, they might ask you to do it. And just imagine the receiving a text message from the person who’s in charge of correcting your writing mistakes, like a proofreader, teacher, or professor, and you notice a grammatical mistake in it. Some playful payback doesn’t necessarily have to cause harm, right? Right, as long as you remember that it’s not really fun if only one person is enjoying it. Remember: great power = great responsibility.

E.g. vs. I.e.–What’s the Difference?

I.e. and e.g. are both Latin abbreviations. E.g. stands for exempli gratia and means “for example.” I.e. is the abbreviation for id est and means “in other words.” Remember that E is for example (e.g.) and that I and E are the first letters of in essence, an alternative English translation of i.e.

But why bother with all this Latin? Don’t we have enough abbreviations in English?

Think about it. How would you feel if you got a text message that ended in SWAK? Many of the parents who took a quiz on texting acronyms weren’t sure what it meant. While some teenagers may laugh a little at the older generation’s inability to master texting lingo, the truth is that many of them would be hard-pressed to explain the difference between i.e. and e.g. Now you know the basics, but let’s get into the nitty-gritty of what everyone from student to professional writer needs to know about these meaningful letters.

What Does E.g. Mean?

Once again, e.g. is short for exempli gratia, a Latin phrase that means “for the sake of example.” As you may guess, you use it to introduce one or more examples. Don’t worry about listing every possibility; e.g. is used to introduce a few examples, not a complete list.

And now for some examples of e.g.:

Should that happen to poor, as-yet unaffected places (e.g., most of South Asia and Africa) the suffering can be great. —“WHO rejects calls to move Olympics over Zika fears”

There’s a common view that Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘30-minute city’ is yet another slight variation on the many terms we already have for a more sustainable urban form e.g. compact city, walkable city, smart growth, new urbanism, urban consolidation. —“Is Turnbull’s ’30-minute city’ a serious election issue?”

What Does I.e. Mean?

What about i.e.? A lot of people confuse this expression with e.g., but this one does not have to do with listing examples. I.e.’s Latin origin is the phrase id est, which translates to English as “that is to say” or “in other words.” Here’s a trick to remember this: associate the I of i.e. with the I of “in other words.” Alternately, imagine that the I and E stand for “in essence.”

And now, let’s take a look at i.e. in action:

[What privilege] would allow them to refuse to answer investigators’ questions? Only one: the Fifth Amendment privilege—i.e., the refusal to answer on the grounds that truthful responses might be incriminating. — “How to Read the IG Report”

Besides math and crossword puzzles, I am passionate about self-supported bicycle touring, i.e., traveling hundreds and thousands of miles on a bike with all my camping gear and other supplies. —The New York Times

How to Use E.g. and I.e. in Writing

E.g. and i.e. are both lowercase when they show up in the middle of a sentence (i.e., like this). Most American style guides recommend a period after both letters in both abbreviations.

In general, you add a comma after e.g. and between each subsequent example if there is more than one item in your list. If you want your examples or your narrowing-down set apart from the rest of the sentence, you can enclose e.g. and i.e., along with the examples associated with them, in parentheses.

Even though exempli gratia and id est are both Latin (and therefore italicized), no need to put e.g. or i.e. in italics when they’re in abbreviated form. Abbrevs are all about keeping things quick and easy, after all.

Let’s recap.

E.g. is used to give one or more possible examples. It’s a signal that you’re seeing one or a few of multiple possibilities.

I.e, on the other hand, clarifies; you are providing more precise information. Where e.g. opens up more options, i.e. narrows them down.

Compare these two examples:

After work, I’ll walk over to that new sports arena, i.e., Thunderdome.

After work, I’ll walk over to a sports arena, e.g., Thunderdome or Victory Court.

In the first example, you are clarifying that Thunderdome is the exact arena that you will visit. In the second example, you will visit Thunderdome, Victory Court, or any other sports arena.

Now you have a response if a teen teases you about your lack of texting expertise. You can ask her to tell you the words behind some abbreviations that you understand (e.g., id est). FYI (i.e., for your information), SWAK means “sealed with a kiss.”