Noun-pronoun agreement

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing or concept, such as Abraham Lincoln, SUNY Buffalo State, baseball or global warming. A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. These include he, she, it and they. Be careful about the pronouns you choose because pronouns need to agree in gender and number with the nouns to which they refer.

Examples:

President Conway-Turner said her plan for the college will help it become the premier campus in the state.

(President Conway-Turner is a noun and because she is female her is the correct pronoun here. College is what is known as a collective noun. The college is a singular item, even though it is made up of many people. The correct pronoun referring to a singular item is it.)

SUNY Buffalo State will open its newest job-training program in June.

(Same thing here. Its is the correct pronoun because SUNY Buffalo State is a singular item, or collective noun. It’s one college.)

The Erie County Legislature will vote on its proposals during Thursday’s meeting.

(Legislature is another collective noun. It is singular thing, even though it is made up of many people. The pronoun to use here is its. Don’t be tempted to use ‘them’ even though that’s the way many people use it in conversation!)

Members of the Erie County Legislature will propose their changes to the law today.

(This one differs from the previous example because it refers to members, or several people. That makes it plural and therefore takes the plural pronoun their.)

Pay attention to the use of indefinite pronouns, or those pronouns that refer to nonspecific persons or things. These include: anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, somebody, someone and something.  The temptation in many cases is to use a plural pronoun to refer to a singular indefinite pronoun. Don’t be tempted.

Examples:

Anyone who enters the school must show his or her identification to the security guard.

 (To use the plural pronoun their is incorrect, even though many people would use it in casual conversation. Anyone is singular and requires a singular pronoun. Here, both the male and female singular pronouns are used because either would need to show identification.)

Somebody left his or her wallet at the cash register.

(Somebody is a singular indefinite pronoun and requires singular possessive pronouns, his or her. The plural possessive pronoun their would be incorrect.)