As I’m sure you know, pronouns serve a key function in written communication. Because they have the power to stand in for nouns, they add remarkable ease and convenience to our everyday discourse.

Just to review – in case it has been a while since you diagrammed sentences in middle school English class – here is a list of common pronouns:

I, me, you, he, she, him, her, it, we, us, they, them, who, whom, that, which, this, his, her, its, their, our, your, my

Don’t forget indefinite pronouns, like:

everybody, anything, each, either, nobody, no one, anyone, everyone, everything, nothing, somebody, something, someone, anybody

(We won’t be dealing with indefinite pronouns in this post, however.)

Pronouns are humble little words, but they have great power. Without pronouns, we’d all have to speak and write in a stilted, repetitive manner: Loren would have to use Loren’s name every time Loren wanted to refer to Loren. Loren’s readers would soon grow tired of reading Loren’s name, no doubt. Pronouns give Loren and Loren’s readers more options, because using pronouns Loren can communicate to Loren’s readers without Loren having to repeat “Loren” so many times.

Okay, enough of that. You see what I mean, I hope. A world without pronouns would be a world full of bloated paragraphs instead of sleek sentences. No one would spend time reading blogs for fun, that’s for sure.

What I want to think about today, however, is not merely the importance of pronouns. I want to explore certain pronouns’ potential impact on readers, using blog writers and readers as an example.

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