Question

Select a suitable pronoun to complete the sentence:
I don’t think she knows many people. When I see her, she is always by ________.

a)himself
b)herself
c)themselves
d)myself

Answer 1

Hint: The pronoun ‘she’ 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 its correct partner. So, we have to find the reflexive that matches with the given pronoun.

Now that we know what pronouns are, let’s look at our options one by one:

a)himself - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘he/him’. It would be grammatically wrong to use this. So, this is an incorrect option.
b)herself - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘ she/her’. So, this is the correct option.
c)themselves - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘they/them’. It would be grammatically incorrect to use this. So, this is an incorrect option.
d)myself - This reflexive goes with the pronouns ‘I/me’. It would be grammatically incorrect to use this. So, this is an incorrect option.

Note: Try to match the pronoun in the given sentence to the appropriate one in the given options.