Lesson: English Grammar - 11t01

Pronouns: Try it Yourself

Task: Identify, in each sentence, all of the pronouns whose antecedents are not perfectly clear. Note: there may be more than one error per sentence.

1. Amina worked at her company for ten years, until they hired a younger associate who took credit for her work and she quit.

The first "her" is indeed a pronoun, but it's grammatically correct since it can only refer to Amina at this point in the sentence.

The second pronoun in the sentence, "they," is flawed. We so often use "they" in everyday speech without offering any antecedent for it, that we find ourselves starting to treat it as a noun in its own right. Still, anytime a pronoun is used without a clear antecedent it's flawed. Instead of "they," the author could provide names or just say "the bosses."

The third pronoun in the sentence is the second "her," which is also flawed. Logically, "her" would seem to refer to Amina, but technically, it could refer either to Amina or to the younger associate. Just because you can figure out the meaning, that doesn't mean the pronoun is used correctly. If there's more than one possible antecedent, as there is here, then the pronoun is too vague.

The final pronoun is "she," and it's wrong for the same reasons that the second "her" is wrong.

Countinue

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