Quiz 40 · Pronoun Case and Unclear Reference

First, the idea

A noun is a word that names a person, a place, or a thing: Ahmed, Brooklyn, the oven. A pronoun is a short word that stands in for a noun, so that the writer does not have to say the noun again and again. He, she, it, they, him, her, them, me, and us are all pronouns.

Ahmed lit the ovens at ten. He lit them before he mixed anything.

In the second sentence, he stands for Ahmed and them stands for the ovens. The noun a pronoun stands for is called its antecedent, which means "the one that goes before." The antecedent of he is Ahmed. The antecedent of them is the ovens.

Quiz 39 asked one question about a pronoun: does it match its antecedent in number, one or more than one? This quiz asks two more. First, does the pronoun point to one clear antecedent? Second, is the pronoun in the right form for its job in the sentence?

Where the finger points

The hand drawn at the top of this page is pointing. Its first finger is stretched out, and the other fingers are folded under. When someone points like that, you look where the finger points, and you know who they mean.

A pronoun is a hand pointing back at a noun. When readers meet he or she or they, they look back where the finger points to find the person. If one person stands there, the reader knows who is meant. If two people stand there, the reader cannot tell which one is meant. That is called unclear reference. The fix is to name the person.

Here is a hand pointing at two people. Read it aloud once.

Mr. Okafor met Ahmed at the back door, and he unlocked the flour room.

Who unlocked the flour room? Look back where he points. Two men stand there, Mr. Okafor and Ahmed. Either one could have the key. The sentence is grammatical, and it still leaves the reader guessing.

The first repair is to name the person.

Mr. Okafor met Ahmed at the back door, and Ahmed unlocked the flour room.

Now nobody has to guess. Writers sometimes worry that saying a name twice sounds clumsy. In a note that someone has to act on, a name said twice is better than a guess.

The second repair, when someone is speaking, is to give their own words in quotation marks.

Mr. Okafor told Ahmed, "Your key works now."

Without the quotation marks, that would be Mr. Okafor told Ahmed that his key worked, and his would point at both men. Inside the quotation marks, your can only mean Ahmed, because Mr. Okafor is speaking to him.

The third repair is to build the sentence so that only one person stands behind the finger. A pronoun points back to someone already named.

When Mr. Okafor came in, he checked the proofer.

Only one person stands before he: Mr. Okafor. The finger has nowhere else to point. (The proofer is the warm cabinet where shaped dough rises.)

A finger can also point at nobody. Read this one.

The price of rye flour went up again, and they did not even send a letter.

Who are they? Look back. There is rye flour and there is a price, but no person. The writer knows who they are; the reader was never told. The repair is the same: name them.

The price of rye flour went up again, and the mill did not even send a letter.

So the check for reference is a question: where does the finger point? Find the pronoun. Look back. If exactly one person or thing stands there, and it is the one the writer means, the check passes. If two stand there, or none, name the one you mean.

In conversation, people say he and she this way all day, and it works, because the listener can ask, "Who, Ahmed?" A note left in the shop overnight cannot answer questions. The reader has only the page.

The right form for the job

The second part of this quiz has no picture. It is a plain fact about English. A pronoun changes its form depending on its job in the sentence.

When the pronoun does the action, it takes the subject form: I, he, she, we, they.

She opens the shop. They bake at night. I count the register.

When the pronoun receives the action, or comes after a small word like to, for, with, or between, it takes the object form: me, him, her, us, them.

Mr. Okafor called her. The order is for them. Daniela trained with us.

With one pronoun alone, almost nobody makes a mistake. Nobody says Me count the register or Mr. Okafor called I. The mistakes come when a pronoun is paired with another person.

The test for a pair is to cover the other person and read the sentence with the pronoun alone.

Daniela and ___ closed the shop on Sunday.

Cover Daniela and. What is left is ___ closed the shop. I closed the shop sounds right; me closed the shop does not. So: Daniela and I closed the shop on Sunday.

Mr. Okafor sent the schedule to Daniela and ___.

Cover Daniela and. Sent the schedule to me sounds right; sent the schedule to I does not. So: to Daniela and me.

Three more places where the cover test helps.

Between always takes the object form, for both people after it: between you and me, between him and her. Many people say between you and I because I sounds more careful. Cover you and: between I does not sound right, and the test marks it.

Myself is used only when I is already in the same sentence: I burned myself on the tray. It is not a polite way to say me. Send the list to Daniela or myself has no I in it, so the right word is me.

We and us sometimes come right before a noun, as in we bakers or us bakers. Here, cover the noun.

___ bakers start work while the city sleeps.

Cover bakers. We start work sounds right; us start work does not. So: We bakers start work while the city sleeps. And after a word like for, it goes the other way: The new mixer was bought for us bakers, because for us is right.

(Start Here, Part 3, also has a test for who and whom. This quiz leaves those two there.)

A word about how people talk. Me and Ahmed are working Friday is how most of the city says it, and everyone who hears it understands it perfectly. It is not broken English. It is spoken English, and in a conversation it is fine. The test, and most written English, puts the pronoun in its subject form and puts the other person first: Ahmed and I are working Friday. The test will mark the spoken version wrong, so on the test, use the written one. Quizzes 42 and 57 are where moving between the two kinds of English becomes a named strength.

On the test, these questions arrive as dropdowns inside notes, emails, and letters, often where two or three people are named close together. Each time you see a pronoun there, ask two questions. Is it in the right form? Cover the other person and read it alone. And where does the finger point? Look back and count who stands there.

Worked example — thinking out loud

A line Daniela wrote in the shift log, the notebook where each shift leaves word for the next one. Here it is, whole.

Mr. Okafor and myself checked the proofer with Ahmed on Tuesday, and he thinks the top shelf runs hot.

Read it aloud once. Two questions, one at a time.

First, the form. Myself is in a pair, Mr. Okafor and myself, and the pair does the checking. Cover Mr. Okafor and. What is left is myself checked the proofer. That does not sound right. Myself needs an I earlier in the sentence, and there is none.

The tempting repair is me, because many people say it that way.

Mr. Okafor and me checked the proofer with Ahmed on Tuesday …

Run the cover test anyway. Me checked the proofer. No. The pair does the action, so it needs the subject form.

Mr. Okafor and I checked the proofer with Ahmed on Tuesday …

Cover the other person: I checked the proofer. The check passes.

Now the second question. Where does he point? Look back. Two men stand there, Mr. Okafor and Ahmed. Daniela is not one of them, because she would be I.

The tempting path here is to decide for the writer. One reader says, "It must be Mr. Okafor, he was named first." Another says, "It must be Ahmed, he is the nearest name, and he works with the proofer every night." Both readers are guessing, and they guessed different men. Why that fails, in one sentence: when two careful readers can point the finger at two different people, the sentence is unclear, however sure each reader feels.

Daniela knows who said it. Say it was Ahmed. The repair is to name him.

Mr. Okafor and I checked the proofer with Ahmed on Tuesday, and Ahmed thinks the top shelf runs hot.

Where does the finger point now? There is no finger; there is a name. Both checks pass.

The log's next line is short.

If it runs hot again, call Mr. Okafor or I.

First, where does it point? Back to the top shelf, the only thing that runs hot. That one is clear. Then the form. Cover Mr. Okafor or: call I. No. The pronoun receives the call, so it takes the object form: call Mr. Okafor or me.

☞ Behind you: Quiz 39 (a pronoun matches its antecedent in number; this quiz asks whether the antecedent is clear at all) and Quiz 36 (readers give a modifier to the nearest word it could fit; with an unclear pronoun, readers do the same thing and grab the nearest name). Ahead: Quiz 41 (its, the pronoun, and it's, which means it is) and Quiz 42 (word choice, and the two kinds of English, spoken and written). In plain words first: Grammar: Start Here, Part 3.

Part B · The skill in the wild

Ahmed, the new night baker, works Tuesday through Saturday, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. He will be away for one week this fall. Daniela, now the assistant manager, asked Marisol to work out who will cover his nights, and Marisol answered by email. Five decision points. At each dropdown, choose the version where every pronoun is in the right form for its job and points to one clear person.

From: Marisol Vega

To: Daniela Vega

Subject: Covering nights the week Ahmed is away

Daniela,

You asked me to work out who covers nights the week Ahmed is away. Here is where it stands. Ahmed asked for that week off when he was hired, for a wedding in his family. 1 [a. Mr. Okafor talked with him on Sunday, and he agreed to the dates. / b. Mr. Okafor talked with him on Sunday and agreed to the dates. / c. He talked with Mr. Okafor on Sunday, and he agreed to the dates.] So the week is set: five nights, Tuesday through Saturday.

2 [a. Mr. Okafor asked you and me to split the five nights. / b. Mr. Okafor asked you and I to split the five nights. / c. Mr. Okafor asked yourself and me to split the five nights.] 3 [a. He will pay we morning people extra for those nights. / b. He will pay us morning people extra for those nights. / c. He will pay ourselves morning people extra for those nights.] I can take Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Could you take Friday and Saturday? On the mornings after our nights, Mr. Okafor will open the shop himself.

4 [a. Me and Ahmed went over the night list before his shift yesterday. / b. Ahmed and me went over the night list before his shift yesterday. / c. Ahmed and I went over the night list before his shift yesterday.] He showed me the changes he has made to it since I left nights, and most of them are better than what I had. 5 [a. Ahmed told Mr. Okafor that he would label every tray in the walk-in before he left. / b. Ahmed told Mr. Okafor that he would label every tray in the walk-in before Ahmed left. / c. Ahmed told Mr. Okafor, “I will label every tray in the walk-in before I leave.”] So everything should be where the list says it is.

Between you and me, I have missed the quiet of that shift a little. If Friday does not work for you, call me tonight.

Marisol

The key — and why the tempting answers tempt

Part A

1. C. Cover Daniela and: I will count the register. The pair does the counting, so the pronoun takes the subject form. A is how most people would say it aloud, and that is why it tempts; but me will count does not survive the cover test. B sounds careful, even polite, and that is its trap: myself needs an I earlier in the sentence, and there is none. D is also an object form: her will count. It fails the same test as A, and it brings in a person nobody named.

2. A. Cover Ahmed and: the note was for me. After for, the object form. B is the overcorrection. Many people have been told that me is wrong in pairs, so I feels safer everywhere; but for I does not survive the cover test. C is the polite-sounding trap again, with no I in the sentence for myself to point back to. D is a subject form after for: for he.

3. B. Cover night bakers: We hardly ever see the people who buy our bread. The pronoun does the seeing, so it takes the subject form. A is what many people say, and it sounds friendly and natural; but us hardly ever see fails the test. C sounds formal and has no we before it to point back to. D, them night bakers, is spoken English in many neighborhoods, and it also changes the meaning: Ahmed would be talking about other bakers, not himself.

4. D. Look back from she. Only one person has been named so far: Marisol. Daniela comes later in the sentence, and a pronoun points back. One person stands behind the finger, so the sentence is clear. B tempts most, because it uses the same people and the same facts as D. But she comes at the end, and by then both women stand behind it: who went home? A puts two men before he: who was worried, the baker who made the call or the owner he woke up? You can guess; the sentence does not say. C does the same with his: whose hours are changing? All three are near-misses: they read smoothly, but each has one person too many behind the finger.

5. A. Marisol speaks to Daniela in her own words, and you can only mean the person she is speaking to. The quotation marks settle it. D is the trap that looks like the repair. It does what the lesson said, it names the person, and now the sentence is perfectly clear. But it names the wrong person: it says Marisol left the apron, and the stem says Daniela did. Clear is not the same as right. B makes it worse: her now points at a woman the sentence never names, and she could be Marisol or that unnamed woman. C adds again, which changes nothing about where the finger points.

6. B. The drivers are named, so the reader knows who left the bags. A fixes the wrong word. It replaces it with the bags, which feels like progress, but it was already clear: it pointed back to the delivery. The pronoun with nobody behind it is they, and A keeps it. C adds again and changes nothing. D turns the sentence around, but them is the same pronoun in its object form, and it still points at nobody.

Part B — Marisol's email

1. b. Mr. Okafor talked … and agreed: one person did both, and he is named, so no pronoun is needed for the agreeing. The one pronoun left, him, points back to Ahmed, the only other man named so far. Option a tempts because most readers guess by sense that the owner did the agreeing. But he stands after both men, and Ahmed could just as well have agreed to dates Mr. Okafor proposed. Option c switches the order of the men and keeps the same problem: two men behind he.

2. a. Cover you and: Mr. Okafor asked me. The pronoun receives the asking, so it takes the object form. Option b is the overcorrection that sounds careful: asked I fails the cover test. Option c uses yourself as a polite word for you; like myself, it is used only when the same person has already been named earlier in the sentence, as in you hurt yourself, and here no one has.

3. b. Cover morning people: He will pay us. The pronoun receives the pay, so it takes the object form. Option a borrows the form that was right in Part A, item 3. There the pronoun did the action; here it receives it. He will pay we fails the test. Option c sounds formal, but ourselves needs a we earlier in the sentence, and the subject here is he.

4. c. Cover Ahmed and: I went over the night list. The pair does the action, so the subject form, with the other person named first. Option a is how the whole city says it, and in a conversation everyone would understand it. The test marks it, so on the test, use the written form. Option b fixes the order and keeps the wrong form: me went over still fails the cover test.

5. c. Ahmed's own words, in quotation marks. I can only be Ahmed, because he is the one speaking. Option a is the way most people would write it, and the reader guesses Ahmed by sense; but he stands after two men. Option b tempts because a name has been added, and adding a name is the repair the lesson taught. But the name comes too late, after he would label has already pointed at both men; and a reader may now think he means Mr. Okafor, since a writer who meant Ahmed would have said before he left. Naming the person fixes the sentence only when the name goes where the finger was.