Printer Fabulous!
Printer Fabulous!

Finding and Fixing Pronoun Agreement Errors

Understand the problem.

Whenever you use a personal pronoun like she, it, or they, you first must establish its antecedent, the word that the pronoun is replacing.

Read this sentence:


The pronoun he replaces the antecedent Gustavo. Pronouns like he will keep you from repeating Gustavo, Gustavo, Gustavo over and over again.


Singular Plural
he, she, it
him, her, it
his, her, hers, its
himself, herself, itself
their, theirs


Read these examples:

The boy scratched his armpit.

The boys scratched their armpits.

In most cases, you won't need to debate whether you need the singular or plural form. The spoken English that you have heard repeatedly will help you make the right pronoun choice when you write.

Use the correct pronoun in tricky situations.


Each and every complicate pronoun agreement.

In math, 1 + 1 = 2. This rule applies to pronoun agreement as well. If you have 1 singular noun + 1 singular noun, then together they equal 2 things, making a plural antecedent.

Read these examples:

The woodpecker and its mate tried their best to oust the squirrel who had stolen their nest.




Observe what happens:

The worker ant and bee drank their fill of nectar in the backyard garden.

Each worker ant and bee drank her fill of nectar in the backyard garden.

Every worker ant, bee, wasp, and mother hummingbird drank her fill of nectar in the backyard garden.

Correlative conjunctions confuse pronoun agreement.

Exercise caution when you use correlative conjunctions like either ... or, neither ... nor, and not only ... but also. Because correlative conjunctions present pairs, you will find two separate antecedents.

Read these examples:



Notice that you have two antecedents, the homemade peanut butter pie (singular) and the handpicked flowers (plural). Use the closer of the two antecedents to determine if you need a singular or plural pronoun.

Singular indefinite pronouns cause problems.

Indefinite pronouns, a special class of words, will often be antecedents for personal pronouns. Some indefinite pronouns—despite the illogic—are singular and will often require a singular pronoun for agreement.

Singular Indefinite Pronouns
each, either, neither, one
anybody, anyone, anything
everybody, everyone, everything
nobody, no one, nothing
somebody, someone, something

Consider these examples:

Anticipating a prank, neither of my brothers would take a glass of my homemade lemonade to quench their his thirst.

Aunt Ida will cook anything that you pick from the garden. Just wash them it so that you don't dirty her pristine counter!


Indefinite pronouns that refer to people—those that end in body or one, for example—are trickier. When you read, you will notice that writers have different strategies for handling these words.

In older publications, you will find writers exclusively using a masculine personal pronoun (he, him, his, or himself) to establish agreement with a singular indefinite pronoun (such as everyone):

When the lifeguard shouted, "Shark!" everyone returned to his spot on the sand.

Excluding half the human race was deemed unfair, so in the late twentieth century, writers tried to give masculine and feminine singular pronouns equal use, like this:

When the lifeguard shouted, "Shark!" everyone returned to his or her spot on the sand.

Constructions like he or she and him or her created reading experiences that were truly clunky. Plus, some individuals wanted other people to refer to them with plural pronouns like they. As a result, you can now find writers producing sentences like this:

When the lifeguard shouted, "Shark!" everyone returned to their spot on the sand.

Other contemporary writers believe that agreement still matters, so their solution is to avoid singular indefinite pronouns altogether, choosing plural nouns instead:

When the lifeguard shouted, "Shark!" the swimmers returned to their spots on the sand.

Not all indefinite pronouns are strictly singular.

Another group of indefinite pronouns is singular or plural, depending on the information from the prepositional phrase that follows.

Indefinite Pronouns That are Singular or Plural
all, any, none*, more, most, some

Read these examples:





Learn to maintain pronoun agreement with collective nouns.

Collective nouns name groups (which are things) composed of members (who are usually people).

Here are examples:

Collective Nouns
army, audience, board, cabinet, class
committee, company, corporation, council
department, faculty, family, firm, group
jury, majority, minority, navy
public, school, senate, team, troupe


Read these examples:

The family is at the table, ready for its dinner, whenever Grandma prepares her delicious chicken pot pie.




Consider these changes:

When Grandpa begins boiling liver, the family quickly find other plans for their meals.




First, you can substitute a regular plural noun for the collective noun. Then you can use—without debate—a plural pronoun.

The team football players earned 500 dollars for their trip.

Another option is to add the word members after a collective noun. Members is a plural antecedent and requires a they, them, their, etc.

When Grandpa has dinner duty, the family members stretch their budgets by eating dollar items from the value menu at Tito's Taco Palace.




Read these examples:



The Southeastern Association of Salt & Pepper Shaker Enthusiasts will hold its annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Printer Fabulous!
Printer Fabulous!

valid html