Pronouns: Stop Repeating Nouns

Next, pronouns. These are the words that save you from saying the same name five times in one paragraph.

A pronoun stands in for a noun. Sipho is late, he missed the bus. The girls won, they practised daily. I gave the book to Thabo, I gave it to him. See how he, they and him do the heavy lifting?

Two lists to keep apart. I, you, he, she, we, they do the action. Me, you, him, her, us, them have the action done to them. She called him. Not her called he.

Then there are the possessive ones: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. That bag is mine. The idea was hers. The last slice is ours. No apostrophe in any of them, ever.

Here is where people lose marks. The pronoun must point at one clear person. Sipho told Thabo that he won. Who is he? Nobody knows. So write: Sipho told Thabo that Sipho won.

You can now explain what a pronoun does, pick the right subject or object pronoun, and check that it points back clearly. Let's test it.