pronoun
'During a canoe ride one night, I sat quietly for almost an hour, trying to spot some of the jungle's creatures. With a flashlight, I finally saw squirrel monkeys running along tree branches. A crocodile eyed my canoe as it moved through the water. On my return to camp, I saw a large, hairy tarantula sitting on a tree stump'.
So what does 'it' refer to in this sentence? The crocodile or the canoe? C told me this was one of the questions on his students' English exam paper; the majority chose the 'crocodile'. One student who insisted that 'it' must be the 'canoe' wanted to claim her points back. Her erstwhile English teacher had taught them that a pronoun usually refers to the closest noun in the sentence. Seeing the argument, the bossy headmaster poked his nose into this grammar business, and announced that 'it' can be both the crocodile and the canoe. (The Word of God) C and I think 'it' is the crocodile cos the reptile is the subject of this sentence, and that the whole paragraph appears to be describing the movements of jungle animals. This is a glimpse of the pettiness of English education in Taiwan. I once read this on an exam paper:
My brother gave me two _______ yesterday. 1) pen 2) pens 3) penis
Hope it was a typo.