English
Guidelines for Selecting Pronoun Case

• Pronouns that serve as subjects of verbs must be in the nominative case; eg., She and I will be attending the party.
• Pronouns that follow linking verbs (such as am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) and rename the words to which they refer must be in the nominative case; eg., It must have been he who drove the car. If it was he who drove the car, I have his licence plate number.
• Pronouns that serve as objects of verbs or objects of prepositions must be in the objective case; eg., Myla asked them to visit James at the hospital. Jill and Mary sent a card to him. Fred will sit between you and me.
• Pronouns that show ownership must be in the possessive case. Possessive pronouns (such as hers, yours, ours, theirs, and its) require no apostrophes; eg., We recovered my car, but yours remains lost. The car and its (not it’s) contents must have been destroyed.
• When a pronoun appears in combination with a noun or another pronoun, ignore the extra noun or pronoun and its conjunction. In this way pronoun case becomes more obvious; eg., The bully pushed Joe and me (not I). (Ignore Joe and).
• In statements of comparison, mentally finish the comparative by adding the implied missing words; eg., In the race, Jim hopes to run as fast as he. (The verb run is implied here: . . . as fast as he runs.)
• Pronouns must be in the same case as the words they replace or rename. When pronouns are used with appositives, ignore the appositive; eg., A new formula was developed by us research assistants. We research assistants have developed a new formula.
• Pronouns ending in self should be used only when they refer to previously mentioned nouns or pronouns (in order to create emphasis); eg., Fred and I are making the appetizers. Fred and I, myself, are making the appetizers.
• Use objective-case pronouns as objects of the prepositions between, but, like, and except, eg., Everyone but Sally and him likes chocolate. Dancers like Mavis and her are hard to emulate.
• Use who or whoever for nominative-case constructions and whom or whomever for objective-case constructions. In making the correct choice, it’s sometimes helpful to substitute he for who or whoever and him for whom or whomever, eg. For whom was this book ordered? (This book was ordered for him/whom?) Who did you say would deliver the parcel? (Who/he . . . would deliver the parcel?)
• Take the package to whoever opens the gate. (In this sentence the clause whoever opens the gate functions as the object of the preposition to. Within the clause itself whoever is the subject of the verb opens. Again, substitution of he might be helpful: He/whoever opens the gate.)