Pronouns aren't conjunctions

If you have been following my blog, you will probably remember blog posts I have written of the common confusion between a conjunct and a conjunction (see A Conjunct is Not a Conjunction) or between an adverb and an adjective (see Adverbs Aren't Adjectives) but I would never have thought it was possible for anyone to mistake a pronoun for a conjunction.
NOTE: My blog post An Adverb is Not a Preposition is different - it's about linguists who are attempting to change the definitions of an adverb and a preposition. They are not confused, they are just being contrary.

In this quora question, one Veronica Curlette whose profile says she's a teacher of English in Canada for more than 25 years seems unable to distinguish a pronoun from a conjunction. Here's the quora question in bold, followed by the answer Veronica gives:

 

This post of hers has been seen more than 77,000 times. That her readers believe she's right is evident from the many praises she receives on this post: 

How can it be that nobody notices her glaring errors? In my last blog post, I brought up another error in Quora and I said it was a case of the blind leading the blind. There is no difference here. Blind Veronica is leading more than 77,000 of her blind readers into the gaping mouth of the grammarless cavern in which she no doubt dwells.

Any child of 10 in my country knows that 'who' is a pronoun. I'm tempted to ask my neighbour's child what part of speech 'who' is but he's only 6 and he may not have been taught elementary grammar yet. But how this teacher of English in Canada can classify 'who' as a conjunction boggles the mind. And what is even more surprising is her 77,000 readers fail to notice this shocking error. 

There are other errors in Veronica's short comment. She analyses the sentence as SVO+SV(O). I really cannot understand how anyone can come up with such a ludicrous analysis of such a simple sentence. Perhaps there are people who cannot see anything beyond the SVO structure and when they are shown the SVOO, SVOA and SVOC structures, they will still beat and force the sentence into the SVO mould they are fixated on.

The third error I want to highlight is something that really gets my goat. Grammar ignoramuses are famous for this and I have given quite a few examples in my blog. It's the making up of non-existent grammar rules. Veronica does this when she says that you must have a subject after a conjunction and of course, to her, 'who' is a conjunction. Later, she adds, as a reminder to her readers, 'Just make sure the next word after the conjunction is a subject.'

Now, we'll see the impact incorrect teaching has on some of the 77,000 readers. S Kumar obviously senses that something is amiss with Veronica's made-up rule that her 'conjunction who' had to be followed by a subject. He suggests the sentence 'He asked me who taught me English' in which a verb follows 'who'. But notice how misled he is by Veronica's flawed analysis and classification of 'who' as a conjunction and he continues to treat 'who' as a conjunction.  

Having entangled herself in a web of incorrect word classification and mistaken sentence analysis, Veronica now spins another bit of nonsense. Her division into subject questions and object questions is her own invention. Again, this is her made-up approach which is as laughably wrong as her crazy SVO+SV(O) analysis.  I expected S Kumar to retort with a sentence such as 'He asked me who to slap for getting her grammar wrong' just to show Veronica that made-up rules don't work and people who make up their own fake grammar rules ought to be told off but I think he's had enough.

I used to get really angry when someone makes up non-existent grammar rules. I used to think that such a person was downright dishonest because if I invented a rule that didn't exist it'd be very hard for me to pretend that I did it honestly. But over the years, I have seen many instances of such rule invention by people who have a weak grasp of grammar. I now know that those who invent non-existent grammar rules actually believe in the truth of their own invention. They are by no means dishonest. They're just ignorant. I really believe Veronica is ignorant but she's not dishonest. She's in fact a good person. I've looked her up on the internet. She's a retired English language teacher who's taught in Canada for 25 years and now she's created a blog to help learners of English who have no opportunity to speak the language. I was reluctant at first to write this blog post but a mistake is a mistake and she has made far too many mistakes in one single comment. I just hope that she will take my criticism in the right spirit and instead of making up her own faulty and absurd rules, she will in future consult a reliable grammar.

There is something else I want to add. Veronica mentions 'conjunctive phrase' (see the first photo above). What does she mean?  I almost fell off my chair when I saw in her list what she meant by a conjunctive phrase. 'How many different kinds of fruit' is an example of her conjunctive phrase. I have to resist a strong urge to post a series of laughing smileys here.  But let's not be too harsh with her. It's likely that she's confused with the French language which I'm told has a category called 'conjunctive phrases' (if it's translated into English of course). Don't ask me what they are or whether they are the same as our complex subordinators; French is Greek to me. And for all I know, mixing French with English may not be all that uncommon for people in Canada where road signs are in both languages.

My advice to people who are not familiar with grammar is to resist the temptation of offering their opinion on grammar. People don't do that with Physics or Astronomy. If Veronica is asked what a 'brown dwarf' is in Astronomy, I bet she's not going to say 'A short person who is often exposed to the sun'. People generally show some respect for the sciences but they seem to think they're all experts in English grammar. 

If you are interested in more posts on the language, see my list of blog posts on the subject.

NOTE: I posted the link to this article on Veronica's Quora post and a few days ago, she posted a very short reply which only shows that she hasn't learnt a thing from this article. Click here for my response to her reply:  Pronouns Aren't Conjunctions Part 2.