Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
We should help everyone as much as possible because we often need help _____.
a) themselves
b) ourselves
c) yourselves
d) himself
d) myself

Answer 1

Hint: The pronoun ‘we’ matches with a similar reflexive pronoun. It is a pair that cannot be edited in any way, any other reflexive would be grammatically incorrect.

Complete answer:
Nouns are naming words. However, one cannot use nouns all the time. So, there are placeholder words that replace nouns, called pronouns. Words like ‘I’, ‘You’, ‘She’, ‘He’, and ‘They’ are pronouns.
There are also words like ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘herself’, ‘himself’, and ‘themselves’ which are called reflexive pronouns, also called emphatic pronouns. They match with certain pronouns and can only be used with their correct partner. So, we have to find the reflexive that matches with the given pronoun. The subject in the given sentence is ‘we’.

Now, we know what we are looking for. Let’s look at the given options-

a. themselves - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘they/them’. It would be grammatically incorrect to use this, and using it would change the meaning of the sentence. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
b. ourselves - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘we/us’. It would be grammatically correct to use this, and using it would retain the original meaning of the sentence. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.
c. yourselves - This reflexive goes with the pronoun ‘you’. It would be grammatically incorrect to use this, and using it would change the meaning of the sentence. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
d. himself - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘he/him’. It would be grammatically incorrect to use this, and using it would change the meaning of the sentence. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
e. myself - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘I/me’. It would be grammatically incorrect to use this, and using it would change the meaning of the sentence. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.

Note: Understand the meaning of the given sentence as the context of the sentence will help you to reach the correct and required conclusion. Try to match the pronoun in the given sentence to the appropriate one in the given options.