Beware of Pronouns!
rogersgeorge on March 19th, 2016
Pronouns often refer to a word that occurs earlier in the text. Often, however, a sentence can have more than one candidate for that pronoun to refer to. The rule is that the pronoun should refer to the closest candidate, (called the antecedent, by the way). We tend to unconsciously follow that rule when we read something, and breaking the rule can cause the unexpectedness that we often regard as humor.
Shoe is a pretty good strip even when I can’t make it into a grammar lesson, but here’s one that I can.
I’d have squirted the dog, though. But then, I’m not very funny.
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