The best-known pronouns are the personal pronouns he, she, we, our and it. These cause few problems. The problems begin with the use of they. The problems really start to mount when we reach anyone, somebody, these, this and which. Finally, hands up if you know the difference between who and whom.
Capitalising the pronoun I is an easy fix, and there are absolutely no exceptions to this rule.
As I mentioned in my introduction the problems begin with they. Many of those who have this problem probably don’t realise that they have it. Take a look at Don’t use he/she to see if you have.
The next rule is counterintuitive, Agreeing with positive and negative sentences, but that is the rule, and rules are rules and must be obeyed.
As well as the rule about capitalisation, the I pronoun has a few usage rules: Me or I?, Somebody and I and Use of myself and I. Now seems to be a good time to mention the Incorrect use of reflexive pronouns, so I will mention them.
Two pages to look at if you want to start making your simple sentences more complex are Who for people and When to use which or that.
A very common question is answered on the page Use it or they when talking about a business.
As well as being a number, one is also a pronoun. To see how it is used take a look at Use of one as the subject and One and ones as pronouns.
The correct use of pronouns with other parts of a sentence are looked at in Pronoun in the wrong place, Using a pronoun as a subject, A pronoun must agree with its noun and Use a plural pronoun with two nouns.
We end this part of the mini course with a look at possessive pronouns: Gerunds should be used with possessive pronouns and No apostrophes with possessive pronouns.
Similar looking pronouns often have almost opposite meanings. Take a look at my list of commonly confused pronouns and see which of them often confuse you:
