ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by indefinite pronouns. Our advice is not

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to start a conversation with them. They just go on and on and on...

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What should replace the underlined word below?

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Although the broken window is the result of a prank, nobody claimed to be the culprit.

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"Nobody" is what's called an indefinite pronoun, because it doesn't refer to a particular person,

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place, or thing.

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It basically goes through life saying "whatevs" to everything.

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What's even more important to note is that "nobody" is a singular indefinite pronoun.

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We're only referring to one mysterious window-breaking nobody here, not a whole gang of them.

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Since we've got a singular subject on our hands, we know we're looking for singular

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verbs as well.

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This makes both (B) and (D) incorrect.

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"Claim" is a plural verb, and it knocks them both out of contention.

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Let's take a look at (A) next to see if the original sentence passes the test.

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Nah, it's not looking so good here. Although "claimed" can be both singular and plural,

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it's in the past tense.

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"Is" signals that the sentence is in the present tense, so (A) has to go.

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Choice (C) is the correct answer. "Claims" is singular and in the present tense, so it's

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everything we've been looking for.

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Man, if only that pronoun had been more definite, we could have cleared things up a lot sooner.

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