Me and I
M Wells
I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in sentences.
I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is correct for
a particular sentence was to remove the other subjects of the sentence
and whatever made sense was correct.
So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct because "I
went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She saw Peter, Paul and
me" would be correct because "She saw me" makes sense.
I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the above
'rule' is accurate? If not, is there another rule that governs the
correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
Many thanks in advance!
Much warmth,
Murray
http://www.planetthoughtful.org
Building a thoughtful planet,
One snide comment at a time.
Robert Lieblich
>
> Hi All,
>
> I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in sentences.
>
> I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is correct for
> a particular sentence was to remove the other subjects of the sentence
> and whatever made sense was correct.
>
> So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct because "I
> went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She saw Peter, Paul and
> me" would be correct because "She saw me" makes sense.
>
> I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the above
> 'rule' is accurate? If not, is there another rule that governs the
> correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
The problem with English is that it sometimes has conflicting rules,
because usages change. The rule you were taught will not mislead
you, and the people who are "correcting" you should not be. They
are following other rules, perhaps not as well-established as
yours, and getting different results.
Consider "He gave it to you and I." Your rule would call for "me,"
and rightly so. "He gave it to you and me" is correct English
usage. But, for whatever reason (and various reasons can be
conjectured), a lot of native English speakers not only say "He gave
it to you and I" but consider "He gave it to you and me" wrong. The
rule they are following says: "Use 'me' after prepositions when it
stands alone but use 'I' when in coordination with another noun or
pronoun." Is that latter rule a "good" one, and does it lead to
"correct" results? I'm not qualified to say.
I certainly trip over a lot of things like "between you and I"
nowadays, and I'll bet you do also. Maybe they're wrong today but
will be right in a few more years. English is like that. I don't
think such a shift will invalidate "between you and me." "It's I"
and "It's me" coexist -- somewhat uneasily, to be sure -- and
neither can be branded incorrect. The same is likely to happen with
other such usages.
But clearly, as to the examples you give, there is nothing wrong
with the way you say things, and people have no business
"correcting" you. Just be wary of "correcting" them.
--
Bob Lieblich
Descriptivist
MC
Robert Lieblich <Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote:
Excellent answer. Pronoun confusion abounds -- more so in AmE than BrE
I suspect -- and I'm running into more and more cases of "Her and me
went to the mall" on line and on TV... which goes against the grain I
was brought up in, but as you say, one day it may be "right." But as far
as I'm concerned it isn't today.
Gary Eickmeier
Robert Lieblich wrote:
I think this kind of loose thinking will only get us in trouble with the
meaning of sentences eventually. If there were no need for case, we
wouldn't be using it. I know this will be challenged, but you must at
least agree that the person who says "Give it to dad and I" will have a
hard time justifying "Give it to me." The students will become more
confused than ever, and needlessly so.
Gary Eickmeier
david56
> Consider "He gave it to you and I." Your rule would call for "me,"
> and rightly so. "He gave it to you and me" is correct English
> usage. But, for whatever reason (and various reasons can be
> conjectured), a lot of native English speakers not only say "He gave
> it to you and I" but consider "He gave it to you and me" wrong.
I'm not so sure. "He gave it to you and me" sounds so natural to my
native-English ears that I suspect it would pass unremarked by most
other native speakers. Those who use the "to you and I" form are
either hyper correcting or repeating what has become idiomatic, but
that doesn't mean that they have abandoned the previous "correct"
version.
--
David
=====
Gary Eickmeier
david56 wrote:
I think they are just totally clueless on grammar. They heard once that
"you and I" was more correct than "you and me," so now that is what they
use. It is not for any "alternate rule" reason or anything else
rational. Why should we honor that?
Gary Eickmeier
>
david56
>
>
> david56 wrote:
>
> > Robert....@Verizon.net spake thus:
> >
> >>Consider "He gave it to you and I." Your rule would call for "me,"
> >>and rightly so. "He gave it to you and me" is correct English
> >>usage. But, for whatever reason (and various reasons can be
> >>conjectured), a lot of native English speakers not only say "He gave
> >>it to you and I" but consider "He gave it to you and me" wrong.
> >
> > I'm not so sure. "He gave it to you and me" sounds so natural to my
> > native-English ears that I suspect it would pass unremarked by most
> > other native speakers. Those who use the "to you and I" form are
> > either hyper correcting or repeating what has become idiomatic, but
> > that doesn't mean that they have abandoned the previous "correct"
> > version.
>
> I think they are just totally clueless on grammar. They heard once that
> "you and I" was more correct than "you and me," so now that is what they
> use.
That's what I doubt. Very few UK English speakers ever think about
grammar. English grammar is hardly ever taught in schools. I reckon
it's more likely that they have picked up an idiom, rather than
rationalised something as "more grammatical".
> It is not for any "alternate rule" reason or anything else
> rational. Why should we honor that?
I didn't. But I think that "to you and me" is unlikely to be
rejected by the "to you and I" speakers.
--
David
=====
Raymond S. Wise
news:R5Ppb.157910$ox6.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
Let's look at it from another perspective. What if a student of English as a
Foreign Language were to ask you why a person they consider educated would
say "Give it to Dad and I"? That sort of question has in fact been asked in
fr.lettres.langue.anglaise , and I answered it[1] by citing the rule which
Bob Lieblich outlined, advising against its use, but pointing out that most
who use it are in fact educated individuals.
It seems to me that this is much more useful to the student than simply
citing the traditional rule and giving no explanation why it is sometimes
not adhered to.
Note:
[1] See the post (in French), at
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=vltbpi9m88k26e%40corp.supernews.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
or
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Gary Eickmeier
david56 wrote:
> That's what I doubt. Very few UK English speakers ever think about
> grammar. English grammar is hardly ever taught in schools. I reckon
> it's more likely that they have picked up an idiom, rather than
> rationalised something as "more grammatical".
Even in England???
>
>
>>It is not for any "alternate rule" reason or anything else
>>rational. Why should we honor that?
>
>
> I didn't. But I think that "to you and me" is unlikely to be
> rejected by the "to you and I" speakers.
Sure - because they are totally clueless etc etc, they are not about to
correct someone ELSE on grammar.
Well, got to go to Austria now - back in ten days -
Gary Eickmeier
david56
> david56 wrote:
>
> > That's what I doubt. Very few UK English speakers ever think about
> > grammar. English grammar is hardly ever taught in schools. I reckon
> > it's more likely that they have picked up an idiom, rather than
> > rationalised something as "more grammatical".
>
> Even in England???
Especially in England, where English grammar is not taught. It was
only when I had to learn French, Latin and Russian grammar that I
made sense of English grammar.
> >>It is not for any "alternate rule" reason or anything else
> >>rational. Why should we honor that?
> >
> > I didn't. But I think that "to you and me" is unlikely to be
> > rejected by the "to you and I" speakers.
>
> Sure - because they are totally clueless etc etc, they are not about to
> correct someone ELSE on grammar.
>
> Well, got to go to Austria now - back in ten days -
Bon voyage.
--
David
=====
Carmen L. Abruzzi
6DPpb.157997$ox6.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com, "Gary Eickmeier"
<geic...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
Why do you think that explaining something means "honoring" it?
Carmen L. Abruzzi
1yQpb.100758$RP2....@twister.tampabay.rr.com, "Gary Eickmeier"
<geic...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
Sure they are. They'd easily tell someone who said, for example "Ball John
kicked yard the across" that that should be "John kicked the ball across the
yard".
>
> Well, got to go to Austria now - back in ten days -
>
Oh, Austria. They mangle German grammar there, innit?
meirman
<geic...@tampabay.rr.com> posted:
>
>
>david56 wrote:
>
>> That's what I doubt. Very few UK English speakers ever think about
>> grammar. English grammar is hardly ever taught in schools. I reckon
>> it's more likely that they have picked up an idiom, rather than
>> rationalised something as "more grammatical".
>
>Even in England???
Yeah, if the English don't care about English, why do we have to?
Oops, it's too late. I already care.
>Gary Eickmeier
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 17 years
meirman
<planet...@stompit.net> posted:
>Hi All,
>
>I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in sentences.
>
>I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is correct for
>a particular sentence was to remove the other subjects of the sentence
>and whatever made sense was correct.
>
>So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct because "I
>went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She saw Peter, Paul and
>me" would be correct because "She saw me" makes sense.
>
>I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the above
>'rule' is accurate?
Yes, it is. I have no doubt those who have nerve enough to correct
you, when you are accurately applying your rule, are wrong themselves
and should learn not to correct people when they are wrong.
All this stems from the 50's or so when children were corrected for
saying "Me and Jimmy are going to the movies." They learned that "me"
was wrong there, and then decided it's probably best never to use the
word. The people who couldn't stomach using "I" where "me" belonged,
and were afraid to use "me" because they still feared their second
grade teacher, latched on to "myself" and use that all the time.
Similarly for 2nd and 3rd person pronouns.
>If not, is there another rule that governs the
>correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
>
>Many thanks in advance!
>
>Much warmth,
>
>Murray
>http://www.planetthoughtful.org
>Building a thoughtful planet,
>One snide comment at a time.
I was as snide as I could manage on short notice.
Carmen L. Abruzzi
"meirman" <mei...@invalid.com> wrote:
> In alt.english.usage on Tue, 04 Nov 2003 12:34:02 GMT M Wells
> <planet...@stompit.net> posted:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in sentences.
>>
>> I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is correct for
>> a particular sentence was to remove the other subjects of the sentence
>> and whatever made sense was correct.
>>
>> So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct because "I
>> went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She saw Peter, Paul and
>> me" would be correct because "She saw me" makes sense.
>>
>> I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the above
>> 'rule' is accurate?
>
> Yes, it is. I have no doubt those who have nerve enough to correct
> you, when you are accurately applying your rule, are wrong themselves
> and should learn not to correct people when they are wrong.
>
> All this stems from the 50's or so when children were corrected for
> saying "Me and Jimmy are going to the movies."
They didn't have movies in the 1550s, so how could this be true?
> They learned that "me"
> was wrong there, and then decided it's probably best never to use the
> word. The people who couldn't stomach using "I" where "me" belonged,
> and were afraid to use "me" because they still feared their second
> grade teacher, latched on to "myself" and use that all the time.
> Similarly for 2nd and 3rd person pronouns.
This weekend a man said to me "Me and my wife and I...".
>
>> If not, is there another rule that governs the
>> correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
>>
For some, the rule seems to be to always use "I" in conjunctions. I wish to
disclaim any thought of "honoring" such usage.
Howard G
Reverse the references and what do you get?
"Between I and you."
["Between you, I and the fencepost..."]
"Give it to I and dad."
Carmen L. Abruzzi
R5Ppb.157910$ox6.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com, "Gary Eickmeier"
<geic...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> If there were no need for case, we
> wouldn't be using it.
So, why are we using it? If there were a need for case, no one would
understand "Me and Jimmy are going to the movies" to mean "Jimmy and I are
going to the movies". It would be as opaque as "who did you go to the
movies with Jimmy and?".
Dave Swindell
<planet...@stompit.net> writes
>Hi All,
>
>I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in sentences.
>
>I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is correct for
>a particular sentence was to remove the other subjects of the sentence
>and whatever made sense was correct.
>
>So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct because "I
>went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She saw Peter, Paul and
>me" would be correct because "She saw me" makes sense.
>
>I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the above
>'rule' is accurate? If not, is there another rule that governs the
>correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
>
London suburb, we were taught about me and I. We were told not to say
"So-and-so and me went to .... ", the correct form is "So-and-so and I
went to .... ". But we were also told, even at that tender age, that
many people took it too far and used "So-and-so and I .... " in the
wrong place. This simple lesson seems to have been lost over the years,
and you all too often see and hear such abominations as "X went with So-
and-so and I .... " instead of "X went with So-and-so and me .... ",
particularly from left-pondians.
In later years we were taught that this persistent error came about from
an 18th or 19th century grammar or "style guide" getting it wrong, but
it became so widespread that it is hard to put it right again. I have
never found any reference to this grammar or style guide to substantiate
the claim.
--
Dave OSOS#24 dswindel...@tcp.co.uk Remove my gerbil for email replies
Yamaha XJ900S & Wessex sidecar, the sexy one
Yamaha XJ900F & Watsonian Monaco, the comfortable one
Eric Walker
Fred likes Mary more than me.
Absent sound case usage, that is as opaque as it gets.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
My opinions on English are available at
http://owlcroft.com/english/
Carmen L. Abruzzi
rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net, "Eric Walker"
<ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 12:42:18 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
>> On 11/4/03 6:55 AM, in article
>> R5Ppb.157910$ox6.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com,
>> "Gary Eickmeier" <geic...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>> If there were no need for case, we
>>> wouldn't be using it.
>>
>> So, why are we using it? If there were a need for case, no
>> one would understand "Me and Jimmy are going to the movies" to
>> mean "Jimmy and I are going to the movies". It would be as
>> opaque as "who did you go to the movies with Jimmy and?".
>
> Fred likes Mary more than me.
>
> Absent sound case usage, that is as opaque as it gets.
>
Oh, I think "millennium hand and shrimp" gives it a good run for the money.
But, true, it is ambiguous, and we need to use means other than case to make
the meaning clear. We need to say either "Fred likes Mary more than I do"
or "Fred likes Mary more than he does me" to disambiguate such a sentence.
Even though we employ different case forms in these unambiguous sentences,
it isn't the case-forms that serve to make the meaning clear, but the syntax
of the clause governed by "than".
Eric Walker
>I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in
>sentences.
>
>I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is
>correct for a particular sentence was to remove the other
>subjects of the sentence and whatever made sense was correct.
>
>So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct
>because "I went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She
>saw Peter, Paul and me" would be correct because "She saw me"
>makes sense.
>
>I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the
>above 'rule' is accurate? If not, is there another rule that
>governs the correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
As a rule of thumb, that will get you by satisfactorily in the
vast majority of cases. It will be of less use in deciding
between who and whom (where "who" corresponds to "I" and "whom"
to "me").
If, besides a rule of thumb, you want to know more about the
real "why" involved, well, a usenet post cannot be a complete
manual of grammar, but a few very basic guidelines may help
you. (If this is _too_ basic, better to err on the safe side.)
We call words that stand for things--whether concrete things,
like a rock or a person or a tractor, or abstract things, like
an idea or love or the mind--nouns; and we call words that
stand in for nouns (like "I" or "me" stand for the full name of
the person saying or writing those words) pronouns.
Pronouns and nouns change form somewhat depending on what role
they are playing in a sentence. That change is a clue to us
about their role, because while it is often obvious, it is at
times unclear without the clue.
What are these roles? They are several, but the chief ones for
this micro-lesson are subject and object.
A sentence has two basic parts: a subject and a predicate. The
subject is the person or thing that the sentence is making a
statement about, and the predicate is the statement. In--
Sam punched Fred.
--"Sam" is the subject, because it is the thing we are making a
statement about, and that statement, the "predicate", is that
he "punched Fred". If we substitute a pronoun for "Sam", we
get--
He punched Fred.
Why do we use "he" instead of "him"? (As in "Him punched
Fred", as Tonto might say it.) Because the form "he" is the
form we use for subjects. What, then, is "him"? It is the
form we use for what are called "objects". An object, to
grossly oversimplify for brevity, is a thing--a noun or
pronoun--that is being acted on or pointed to in a sentence.
If we substitute a pronoun for "Fred" instead of for "Sam", we
get--
Sam punched him.
We use "him" because the thing-name--the pronoun--is an object.
The subject form of the "first person" is "I": the object form
is "me".
There are all kinds of objects, but there is really only one
kind of subject; so, if the word is the subject, or part of the
subject, we use "I" ("Peter, Paul, and I went to the movies");
otherwise, we use "me" ("She saw Peter, Paul and me").
-----------------------------
Life is never quite as simple as we would like it to be. The
complicating factor here is something that is known technically
as the "linking verb". If we want to say that Sam was rough
with us, we write--
Sam punched _____.
--and we know to fill in the blank with "me" because the word
is not the subject, and is a thing being acted on (in this
case, punched) or pointed to. That pattern, a verb (action
word) followed by a noun or pronoun, *usually* means that the
noun or pronoun is being "acted on" in a way that the verb
conveys:
Sally teased the cat.
John started the car.
Amy lit a cigarette.
Paul threw the baseball.
All those nouns--cat, car, cigarette, baseball--are objects; we
can't see that from their noun form, but if we substitute
pronouns that have distinctive forms (which "it" does not), we
_can_ see it. Suppose the cat and the car have names (people
do sometimes name automobiles):
Sally teased Tiger ==> Sally teased him.
Wimsey started Mrs. Merdle ==> Wimsey started her.
*But* "linking" verbs--the commonest is the commonest verb of
all, "to be"--are not considered to really signify an "action",
only a _relation_. In--
The winner is John Smith.
--one might think that "John Smith" is an object, and so write,
if substituting a pronoun--
The winner is him.
--but, alas, that would be wrong. Because linking verbs only
express a _connection_, and do not signify an "action" that has
an object, the noun or pronoun after such a verb is of the same
case as the noun or pronoun before it:
It was he.
(There can be sentences in which the words before and after the
"to be" form are both objects, but this is a micro-lesson.)
In practice, the matter normally arises only for pronouns with
distinctive role-forms (the technical term is "inflections")
used after "to be" (I suppose one could construct a sentence
with a linking verb other than "to be" that is followed by a
pronoun, but I cannot think of one just now--which may not
signify, as I am notoriously bad at conjuring examples).
It was I.
It was we.
It was she.
It was he.
It was they.
Those are about the only forms likely to give trouble owing to
a linking verb being involved.
You do urgently need to be aware, however, that those
grammatically correct forms after "to be" can really get up
some people's noses, with "It is I" the most provocative: if
you write or say "It is I", you can usually be guaranteed a
long evening's entertainment (on the other hand, if you write
or say "It is me", you will be about equally guaranteed an
evening's entertainment, though the program will be
different).[1]
[That particular form is nearly always easily avoided, because
it is almost invariably an answer to "Who's there?", for which
"I am" works wonderful well, or to "Who is this?", to which
"It's _____"--plugging in your name--works best.]
So far, I have spoken of "sentences", but one sentence can
contain more than one independent statement. Germane here:
John like Mary more than I do.
"John likes Mary" is one statement, and "I do" is another, and
they are combined in a clear and meaningful way in that full
sentence. Because the "I" there is the thing its "local
statement" (so to speak) is speaking of ("I do"), it is the
subject of that statement, and we use "I", not "me".
But if we write or say "John likes Mary more than me", that is
another kettle of fish. Now, we are comparing John's liking
for Mary to his liking for you. To take the simple route,
elimination: "me" is not the subject of any statement, so it
must be an object, hence the form "me" (not "I"). It is also
an object because it is being "pointed to" by the word "than".
Now the crux: for brevity, the first statement is often written
as just:
John like Mary more than I.
But, because we know that "I" signifies a subject, we know that
the rest of the "local statement" involving "I" has just been
left out, meaning we should be able to supply it with trivial
ease, which we can.
That is why the "clue" that the correct form--I versus me in
that example--is sometimes necessary: without that clue (that
is to say, if we cannot trust the writer or speaker who uses
"me" to have necessarily used the correct form), the meaning is
uncertain.
Finally, when dealing with "who" and "whom", you can use the
same principles, or you can rely on the basic rule of thumb by
mentally substituting "he" for "who" and "him" for "whom" and
seeing what the rule says.
[1] That is likely the source of the "corrections" you have
been offered. Whadda ya want? Good taste or good grammar?
Eric Walker
>On 11/4/03 9:17 PM, in article
>rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net,
>"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 12:42:18 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/4/03 6:55 AM, in article
>>> R5Ppb.157910$ox6.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com,
>>> "Gary Eickmeier" <geic...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If there were no need for case, we
>>>> wouldn't be using it.
>>>
>>> So, why are we using it? If there were a need for case, no
>>> one would understand "Me and Jimmy are going to the movies"
>>> to mean "Jimmy and I are going to the movies". It would be
>>> as opaque as "who did you go to the movies with Jimmy
>>> and?".
>>
>> Fred likes Mary more than me.
>>
>> Absent sound case usage, that is as opaque as it gets.
>
>Oh, I think "millennium hand and shrimp" gives it a good run
>for the money.
Not exactly: that is not an ambiguous statement, it is a
nonsense statement, a deliberate concoction of non-sense.
>But, true, it is ambiguous,
So far so good . . .
>and we need to use means other than case to make the meaning
>clear.
But only that far.
>We need to say either "Fred likes Mary more than I do" or
>"Fred likes Mary more than he does me" to disambiguate such a
>sentence.
No, we don't. We need only write "Fred likes Mary more than
me" or "Fred likes Mary more than I", and no "disambiguation"
is needed (unless, of course, we have reason to believe that
the speaker or writer has been influenced to too many usenet
posts from anti-case revisionists); if we assume a person who
knows and uses simple and sound English, there is no ambiguity
to dis.
>Even though we employ different case forms in these
>unambiguous sentences, it isn't the case-forms that serve to
>make the meaning clear, but the syntax of the clause governed
>by "than".
Since one can readily discern their very different meanings in
the forms as given, that is a remarkable statement.
Eric Walker
[Did it again! Forgot the wanted footnote.]
>>Oh, I think "millennium hand and shrimp" gives it a good run
>>for the money.
>
>Not exactly: that is not an ambiguous statement, it is a
>nonsense statement, a deliberate concoction of non-sense.[1]
[1] Which I do not claim the credit for having concocted. It
is the trademark line of a minor recurring character, a zany
known as Ol' Foul Ron, in Terry Pratchett's "Diskworld" series.
Carmen L. Abruzzi
>
> He punched Fred.
>
> Why do we use "he" instead of "him"? (As in "Him punched
> Fred", as Tonto might say it.) Because the form "he" is the
> form we use for subjects. What, then, is "him"? It is the
> form we use for what are called "objects". An object, to
> grossly oversimplify for brevity, is a thing--a noun or
> pronoun--that is being acted on or pointed to in a sentence.
All very well, but none of this explains why "him punched Fred" is not a
valid English sentence. Why does "him punched Fred" not convey the meaning
that Fred did the punching and "him" took Fred's punch?
Dave Swindell
Eric Walker <ewa...@owlcroft.com> writes
>
>>We need to say either "Fred likes Mary more than I do" or
>>"Fred likes Mary more than he does me" to disambiguate such a
>>sentence.
>
>No, we don't. We need only write "Fred likes Mary more than
>me" or "Fred likes Mary more than I"
In a perfect world this is quite correct. But English has lived through
a couple of centuries of ambiguation on the use of "me" and "I" in
contexts such as these. So much so that, sadly, many people in social
arenas where you would honestly believe they should know better have
lost this most powerful and elementary aspect of basic English grammar.
I would love to think that we could reintroduce grammar to schools at an
early age, and restore "me" and "I" to their true positions in everyday
consciousness (or unconsciousness perhaps), but it I fear it is as lost
a cause as the 's plural.
John Flynn
> Eric Walker wrote:
>
> [Did it again! Forgot the wanted footnote.]
>
>>> Oh, I think "millennium hand and shrimp" gives it a good run
>>> for the money.
>>
>> Not exactly: that is not an ambiguous statement, it is a
>> nonsense statement, a deliberate concoction of non-sense.[1]
>
> [1] Which I do not claim the credit for having concocted. It
> is the trademark line of a minor recurring character, a zany
> known as Ol' Foul Ron, in Terry Pratchett's "Diskworld" series.
"Foul Old Ron". Get the word order right -- names DO NOT have case in
English.
--
johnF
"Communication is _a_ function of language, not _the_ function."
-- _Grammatical Theory: Its Limits and Its Possibilities_, Frederick Newmeyer
Harvey Van Sickle
> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 21:37:04 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
-snip-
>> We need to say either "Fred likes Mary more than I do" or
>> "Fred likes Mary more than he does me" to disambiguate such a
>> sentence.
>
> No, we don't. We need only write "Fred likes Mary more than
> me" or "Fred likes Mary more than I", and no "disambiguation"
> is needed (unless, of course, we have reason to believe that
> the speaker or writer has been influenced to too many usenet
> posts from anti-case revisionists); if we assume a person who
> knows and uses simple and sound English, there is no ambiguity
> to dis.
Assuming that anyone outside this group understands anything about the
use of "simple and sound English" is, I submit, assuming far too much.
Although we *shouldn't" have to use more than case to avoid ambiguity,
it has long been the case that we *do* have to use more. Assuming that
others are using case accurately and/or will understand one's accurate
use of case is as unrealistic as assuming that they will immediately
understand what you mean by bemused, disinterested or fulsome.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 21 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs)
david56
Because in English, word order is a significant factor in meaning.
Subject - Verb - Object, in that order, is a very powerful factor
In "him punched Fred", the word order indicator is so much more
strong than the case of the pronoun that it overpowers it. The same
happens with "Fred punched he".
You can modify this with context and word stress.
- Whom did he punch?
- Fred punched he.
or
- Fred, punched he.
--
David
=====
John Flynn
> carmenl...@yahoo.com spake thus:
>
>> Eric Walker wrote:
>>
>>> He punched Fred.
>>>
>>> Why do we use "he" instead of "him"? (As in "Him punched
>>> Fred", as Tonto might say it.) Because the form "he" is the
>>> form we use for subjects. What, then, is "him"? It is the
>>> form we use for what are called "objects". An object, to
>>> grossly oversimplify for brevity, is a thing--a noun or
>>> pronoun--that is being acted on or pointed to in a sentence.
>>
>> All very well, but none of this explains why "him punched Fred" is
>> not a valid English sentence. Why does "him punched Fred" not convey
>> the meaning that Fred did the punching and "him" took Fred's punch?
>
> Because in English, word order is a significant factor in meaning.
> Subject - Verb - Object, in that order, is a very powerful factor
>
> In "him punched Fred", the word order indicator is so much more
> strong than the case of the pronoun that it overpowers it. The same
> happens with "Fred punched he".
>
> You can modify this with context and word stress.
>
> - Whom did he punch?
> - Fred punched he.
>
> or
>
> - Fred, punched he.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/82/R0218200.html
--
johnF
"She had begun to sigh for somebody further on in manhood. Stephen was
hardly enough of a man." -- _A Pair of Blue Eyes_, Thomas Hardy
david56
> david56 wrote:
>
> > carmenl...@yahoo.com spake thus:
> >
> >> Eric Walker wrote:
> >>
> >>> He punched Fred.
> >>>
> >>> Why do we use "he" instead of "him"? (As in "Him punched
> >>> Fred", as Tonto might say it.) Because the form "he" is the
> >>> form we use for subjects. What, then, is "him"? It is the
> >>> form we use for what are called "objects". An object, to
> >>> grossly oversimplify for brevity, is a thing--a noun or
> >>> pronoun--that is being acted on or pointed to in a sentence.
> >>
> >> All very well, but none of this explains why "him punched Fred" is
> >> not a valid English sentence. Why does "him punched Fred" not convey
> >> the meaning that Fred did the punching and "him" took Fred's punch?
> >
> > Because in English, word order is a significant factor in meaning.
> > Subject - Verb - Object, in that order, is a very powerful factor
> >
> > In "him punched Fred", the word order indicator is so much more
> > strong than the case of the pronoun that it overpowers it. The same
> > happens with "Fred punched he".
> >
> > You can modify this with context and word stress.
> >
> > - Whom did he punch?
> > - Fred punched he.
> >
> > or
> >
> > - Fred, punched he.
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/61/82/R0218200.html
I believe you are mistaken. Carmen seems to be from a country which
does not have English as its first language. We shall await an
indication of whether it was intended as a serious question.
--
David
=====
Carmen L. Abruzzi
"Harvey Van Sickle" <harve...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On 05 Nov 2003, Eric Walker wrote
>
>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 21:37:04 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>>
> -snip-
>
>
>>> We need to say either "Fred likes Mary more than I do" or
>>> "Fred likes Mary more than he does me" to disambiguate such a
>>> sentence.
>>
>> No, we don't. We need only write "Fred likes Mary more than
>> me" or "Fred likes Mary more than I", and no "disambiguation"
>> is needed (unless, of course, we have reason to believe that
>> the speaker or writer has been influenced to too many usenet
>> posts from anti-case revisionists); if we assume a person who
>> knows and uses simple and sound English, there is no ambiguity
>> to dis.
>
> Assuming that anyone outside this group understands anything about the
> use of "simple and sound English" is, I submit, assuming far too much.
>
> Although we *shouldn't" have to use more than case to avoid ambiguity,
> it has long been the case that we *do* have to use more.
It sure has, for about a thousand years now.
> Assuming that
> others are using case accurately and/or will understand one's accurate
> use of case is as unrealistic as assuming that they will immediately
> understand what you mean by bemused, disinterested or fulsome.
More to the point, even the most fastidious user of case in modern English
cannot disambiguate sentences of the form "Fred likes Mary more than X";
except for a very limited number of possible values for 'X'. Most values
for 'X' cannot be disambiguated by case, so that it's almost not worth
mentioning the few instances in which it is possible if one does use case
accurately.
Daniel James
news:<rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net>, Eric
Walker wrote:
[snipped]
> ..."millennium hand and shrimp" ...
> ... a nonsense statement, a deliberate concoction of non-sense.[1]
> [1] Which I do not claim the credit for having concocted. It
> is the trademark line of a minor recurring character, a zany
> known as Ol' Foul Ron, in Terry Pratchett's "Diskworld" series.
It's interesting that a piece of self-confessed nonsense spoken
occasionally by a minor (but recurring) character should stick so
firmly in the mind (of most people I know who've read Pratchett, not
just Eric).
The character's name, by the way (at least in UK-printed Pratchetts)is
"Foul Ole Ron" -- was "Ol' Foul Ron" a thinko/typo, Eric, or is it
different in Transpondia? Calling Ron a "zany" seems almost charitable,
he's a tramp, a beggar, a wino, a dropout; noted for saying "buggrit",
"millennium hand and shrimp", and occasional other nonsense.
For that matter, the books are the "Discworld" series, over here. Even
though I normally spell "disk" with a 'k' (unlike the majority of
Brits, I'm sorry to say) it looks immediately wrong in "diskworld". Is
the series name spelt differently in the US? (Seems unlikely,
considering some of the things I know PTerry has said about stopping
publishers changing his work needlessly, but you never know).
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
What duck?
Carmen L. Abruzzi
"david56" <bass.c...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
I'm honored that you could think so about me. Yes, it was intended as a
serious question, and your answer is fairly accurate, except that word order
is just about the only significant factor in meaning, not just a significant
factor.
And except for the last bits. You can't really do that "Fred punched he" or
even "Fred, punched he" stuff you know. Not round here at least. Word
order trumps it even when the meaning ought to be obvious. "Fred, he
punched" is possible if it means "In contrast to what he did to others, he
punched Fred". But not if it's just a neutral statement of his actions.
david56
It's not normal, I grant you, but W S Gilbert bent lyrics to this
form on occasion.
Where do you live? Your email address doesn't give much of a clue,
and you're posting to Usenet via the German server, which doesn't
help either.
--
David
=====
Harvey Van Sickle
> carmenl...@yahoo.com spake thus:
-snip-
>> word order is just about the only significant factor in meaning,
>> not just a significant factor.
>> And except for the last bits. You can't really do that "Fred
>> punched he" or even "Fred, punched he" stuff you know. Not round
>> here at least. Word order trumps it even when the meaning ought
>> to be obvious. "Fred, he punched" is possible if it means "In
>> contrast to what he did to others, he punched Fred". But not if
>> it's just a neutral statement of his actions.
> It's not normal, I grant you, but W S Gilbert bent lyrics to this
> form on occasion.
Indeed he did, but in a manner which emphasised the "unnatural-to-the-
point-of-being-comic" impact of the construction. ("But that kind of
ship so suited he...")
Dr Robin Bignall
>On 11/4/03 9:17 PM, in article
>rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net, "Eric Walker"
><ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 12:42:18 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/4/03 6:55 AM, in article
>>> R5Ppb.157910$ox6.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com,
>>> "Gary Eickmeier" <geic...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If there were no need for case, we
>>>> wouldn't be using it.
>>>
>>> So, why are we using it? If there were a need for case, no
>>> one would understand "Me and Jimmy are going to the movies" to
>>> mean "Jimmy and I are going to the movies". It would be as
>>> opaque as "who did you go to the movies with Jimmy and?".
>>
>> Fred likes Mary more than me.
>>
>> Absent sound case usage, that is as opaque as it gets.
>>
>Oh, I think "millennium hand and shrimp" gives it a good run for the money.
I can't help thinking that one of these days I'm going to see a pub called
"Millennium Hand and Shrimp", with an appropriate sign outside which I will
photograph for posterity. Hell, if I felt like working all day for next to
nothing[1] I'd even open one and commission a sign writer.
[1] The pub I visit deep in the country while waiting for Jeanne to get to
the local station Wednesday and Friday evenings is typical of what's
happened since the opening hours were relaxed. The owner feels obliged to
stay open all day just because all other pubs do, and he's probably obliged
to under the terms of his licence, too. Last Friday, at 6 pm, he and I were
alone in the bar. He told me he had had a 'busy' day - including me he'd
had 12 customers since opening at 11 am.
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Quiet part of Hertfordshire
England
Eric Walker
>Eric Walker wrote:
[...]
>> It is the trademark line of a minor recurring character, a
>> zany known as Ol' Foul Ron, in Terry Pratchett's "Diskworld"
>> series.
>
>"Foul Old Ron". Get the word order right -- names DO NOT have
>case in English.
In fact, the name is "Foul Ole Ron". I don't know why, but I
had it fixed in my mind that the name order was reversed from
what would seem normal, but apparently not so. But the form,
as I just verified, is "Ole", not "Old".
Of course names have case in English. But I am not going to
once again undertake to educate those who cannot distinguish
inflection from case: 171 times (rough mental estimate) is
about my limit for leading horses to water.
Eric Walker
[...]
>Assuming that others are using case accurately and/or will
>understand one's accurate use of case is as unrealistic as
>assuming that they will immediately understand what you mean
>by bemused, disinterested or fulsome.
I suppose that depends in good part on to whom or for whom one
is accustomed to speaking and writing.
More salient, while ignoramuses have difficulty themselves
making right forms, they generally understand well enough when
others use those forms. Not always, but often.
Eric Walker
[...]
>[E]ven the most fastidious user of case in modern English
>cannot disambiguate sentences of the form "Fred likes Mary
>more than X"; except for a very limited number of possible
>values for 'X'.
That set of possible values is called "pronouns". It is fairly
small in number, but large in count of appearances.
Eric Walker
[...]
>The character's name, by the way (at least in UK-printed
>Pratchetts) is "Foul Ole Ron" -- was "Ol' Foul Ron" a
>thinko/typo, Eric, or is it different in Transpondia?
No, a thinko of the worst kind, a deliberated one: I would
normally, more or less by sheer instinct, have cast the name as
Foul Ol' [another error] Ron, but somehow had hocused myself--
I cannot now imagine how--into the belief that the usual order
was reversed in this instance.
>Calling Ron a "zany" seems almost charitable, he's a tramp, a
>beggar, a wino, a dropout; noted for saying "buggrit",
>"millennium hand and shrimp", and occasional other nonsense.
Ah, but . . . . There have been clues dropped that Ron is, or
once was, not quite as he seems. (I think, or am I fogged
again as to which of that lot--perhaps the Duckman?--was so
indicated?)
>For that matter, the books are the "Discworld" series, over
>here. Even though I normally spell "disk" with a 'k' (unlike
>the majority of Brits, I'm sorry to say) it looks immediately
>wrong in "diskworld". Is the series name spelt differently in
>the US?
Nope: yet another error. I have never been able to keep the
two forms sorted out, perhaps because there seems, to me,
little if any logic in their separate uses.
Garner (1998) speaking of American usage (but usually noting
where BrE differs, which he makes no mention of in this
connection), observes that:
_Disk_ is the more usual spelling in all but four specific
meanings. _Disc_ is the spelling used for these senses:
(1) "a phonograph record"; (2) "an optical disk (as a
compact disc or videodisc"; (3) "a tool making up part of a
plow"; and (4) "a component of a brake system". Otherwise
_disk_ is the preferred spelling for general reference to
thin circular objects, intervertebral disks, celestial
bodies, and computer disks.
If there is a logical pattern there, I'm missing it. I guess I
was vaguely thiniking of the "celestial bodies" class--and in
fact why Pratchett chose "disc" remains unclear (unless, as I
infer may be the case, what Garner says is not so in BrE).
Carmen L. Abruzzi
> On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 03:36:30 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> [E]ven the most fastidious user of case in modern English
>> cannot disambiguate sentences of the form "Fred likes Mary
>> more than X"; except for a very limited number of possible
>> values for 'X'.
>
> That set of possible values is called "pronouns".
No, it's only a limited subset of pronouns. Five, maybe six, words in all
of English. "I/me", "he/him", "she/her", "we/us", "they/them" and just
possibly "who/whom". We can't use case to clarify the meaning of "Fred
likes Mary more than you" or "Fred likes Mary more than others" or "Fred
likes Mary more than anyone else", etc.
> It is fairly
> small in number, but large in count of appearances.
True, and that's probably why they retain distinct forms. Not because these
forms are particularly useful, but because they are heard so often that
one's ear get used to them, even though their distinctions no longer serve
any useful purpose.
The personal pronouns that don't have case variation ("you" and "it") aren't
any less frequent than the ones that do. And even for the five or six
pronouns that do have case variations, we don't use this variation to convey
meaning. They're just meaningless baubles left over from an earlier version
of English. Baubles that we all feel naked without, to be sure, but baubles
nonetheless.
andrew
"Robert Lieblich" <Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote in message
news:3FA79F2C...@Verizon.net...
> I certainly trip over a lot of things like "between you and I"
> nowadays, and I'll bet you do also. Maybe they're wrong today but
> will be right in a few more years. English is like that. I don't
> think such a shift will invalidate "between you and me." "It's I"
> and "It's me" coexist -- somewhat uneasily, to be sure -- and
> neither can be branded incorrect. The same is likely to happen with
> other such usages.
>
I think you're wrong to put "between you and I" into the same class as "it's
me". "It's me" is a natural variation in usage, and it seems well on its way
to becoming the standard, at least in spoken English. They do coexist, but
it's only temporary. (Where I'm from, "it is I" would raise eyebrows, and
"it is we" would be impossible.) On the other hand, "between you and I" is
not a natural usage: it's a hypercorrection, an artificial usage. You're
right that it'll never invalidate "you and me"; that's because it's outside
the natural development of the language. I daresay there is a difference, no
matter how widespread the artificial usages may become.
Daniel James
> I can't help thinking that one of these days I'm going to see a pub
> called "Millennium Hand and Shrimp"
I had that thought too -- if there can be a chain of "slug and lettuce"
pubs there can be anything.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
There is a pub in Streatham where some of my friends used occasionally
to drink which was always called the "Car Park at Rear" -- because
that's what it said on the sign. I think that must be a chain, too.
Daniel James
[snip]
> Ah, but . . . . There have been clues dropped that Ron is, or
> once was, not quite as he seems. (I think, or am I fogged
> again as to which of that lot--perhaps the Duckman?--was so
> indicated?)
Was? Maybe. Is and will be? I'll wait untill Terry writes that one!
> >For that matter, the books are the "Discworld" series, over
> >here. ... Is the series name spelt differently in
> >the US?
>
> Nope: yet another error. I have never been able to keep the
> two forms sorted out, perhaps because there seems, to me,
> little if any logic in their separate uses.
That's good. I feel happier excusing you a small error than I would
having to accept that Terry was a hypocrite!
Like most rightpondians I always used to spell "disc" with a 'c' -- and
I recall being surprised that Patrick Moore (astronomer and presenter
of the BBC's /Sky at Night/ programme) used a 'k' -- until I came
across the word "diskette". The spelling "discette" looks preposterous
(and seems to me to invite the pronunciation "dishette"), and I can't
see the otherwise felicitous "disquette" catching on, so "diskette" it
will have to be.
> ... as I infer may be the case, what Garner says is not so in BrE.
Indeed. I think the rule in BrE is that the spelling is "disc" unless
you're one of those ecentric types who prefers "disk". I have never
been aware of the word being spelt differently by the same person when
used with different meanings or in different contexts.
> (1) "a phonograph record"
You probably know this, but I thought I should mention that in BrE the
word "phonograph" refers only to the early devices using a wax cylinder
as the recoding medium. More "modern" players (even clockwork ones
playing shellac dis[c/k]s at 78rpm) are called "Gramophones".
Cheers,
Daniel.
Richard R. Hershberger
> On the other hand, "between you and I" is
> not a natural usage: it's a hypercorrection, an artificial usage.
[Insert standard discussion of the fact that "between you and I" has
been in constant use since before English grammars existed, making the
hypercorrection analysis woefully inadequate.]
Richard R. Hershberger
Eric Walker
--
Eric Walker
[...]
>(Where I'm from, "it is I" would raise eyebrows, and "it is
>we" would be impossible.)
I continually wonder why that is so. My belief is that people
find "natural" simply what they have commonly heard most of
their lives. Thus, were the standard forms commonly used, I
would think we would all find them the unexceptionable norm,
and find "It's me" as irritating as it now is to only a subset
of the population.
It is noteworthy that however one chooses to express the
corresponding thoughts in isolation, when one carries the
sentence on, there is no option[1]:
It is we who will triumph in the next election.
It was I who sent that letter.
(There seems, at least in my experience, a tense-related degree
to the repugnance to the standard form: more people will have a
problem with "It is I" than with "It was I".)
[1] For most English speakers; there are doubtless some who
would not feel uncomfortable even with "It was me who did it",
or perhaps "It was me what done it."
Eric Walker
>On 11/5/03 11:31 PM, in article
>rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net,
>"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 03:36:30 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> [E]ven the most fastidious user of case in modern English
>>> cannot disambiguate sentences of the form "Fred likes Mary
>>> more than X"; except for a very limited number of possible
>>> values for 'X'.
>>
>> That set of possible values is called "pronouns".
>
>No, it's only a limited subset of pronouns. Five, maybe six,
>words in all of English. "I/me", "he/him", "she/her",
>"we/us", "they/them" and just possibly "who/whom".
The potential confusion in question concerning persons, that
set covers a lot of ground. "Fred likes Mary more than it" is
a rather unlikely sentence in any sense other than that Fred's
liking for Mary is greater than his liking for "it".
>We can't use case to clarify the meaning of "Fred likes Mary
>more than you" or "Fred likes Mary more than others" or "Fred
>likes Mary more than anyone else", etc.
True enough. But elegance is where we find it, and when we
find that we can comfortably omit an otherwise needless word,
even a little "do" or "does", it is a pleasant discovery. Were
we to revise English usage by law under penalty of painful
death such that ellipsis were forbidden, speech and writing
would be tedious indeed.
Carmen L. Abruzzi
I wonder why you find elegance only in the omission of a word. Do you not
think it inelegant to have these differing forms which serve no purpose
other than to save a word or two here and there in a relatively uncommon
construction; but which must be used in all constructions although they
usually contribute nothing to the meaning?
Eric Walker
[...]
>I wonder why you find elegance only in the omission of a word.
I never said "only"; you inferred that.
>Do you not think it inelegant to have these differing forms
>which serve no purpose other than to save a word or two here
>and there in a relatively uncommon construction; but which
>must be used in all constructions although they usually
>contribute nothing to the meaning?
You propose, then, that we say and write things like--
"Him went to town, kemosabe."
??
Or should it be--
"Sam lent he some money."
??
Inquiring minds want to know.
Yukon Jack
<Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote:
> M Wells wrote:
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I'm curious about the proper usage of "me" and "I" in sentences.
> >
> > I had learned that the simplest way to determine which is correct for
> > a particular sentence was to remove the other subjects of the sentence
> > and whatever made sense was correct.
> >
> > So, "Peter, Paul and I went to the movies" would be correct because "I
> > went to the movies" makes sense. Similarly, "She saw Peter, Paul and
> > me" would be correct because "She saw me" makes sense.
> >
> > I've been corrected by others enough times to wonder if the above
> > 'rule' is accurate? If not, is there another rule that governs the
> > correct usage of "me" and "I" in these situations?
>
> The problem with English is that it sometimes has conflicting rules,
> because usages change. The rule you were taught will not mislead
> you, and the people who are "correcting" you should not be. They
> are following other rules, perhaps not as well-established as
> yours, and getting different results.
>
> Consider "He gave it to you and I." Your rule would call for "me,"
> and rightly so. "He gave it to you and me" is correct English
> usage. But, for whatever reason (and various reasons can be
> conjectured), a lot of native English speakers not only say "He gave
> it to you and I" but consider "He gave it to you and me" wrong.
This is true to a large degree in spoken AmE and it's mostly due to a
perceived need to deliver content without worry of construction (form).
I find even myself stumbling from time to time in conversation. I hear
it from extremely well-educated and well-read people.
However, these same people know the correct written form and I rarely
see (perhaps excepting the occasional email) such misuse.
> The
> rule they are following says: "Use 'me' after prepositions when it
> stands alone but use 'I' when in coordination with another noun or
> pronoun."
I've never heard of this rule! Where is it taught?
>
> But clearly, as to the examples you give, there is nothing wrong
> with the way you say things, and people have no business
> "correcting" you. Just be wary of "correcting" them.
This paragraph captures the essence of the situation! Thanks Robert.
-YJ
Raymond S. Wise
news:061120032238342850%Ja...@KTEH.com...
> In article <3FA79F2C...@Verizon.net>, Robert Lieblich
> <Robert....@Verizon.net> wrote:
[...]
>
> > The
> > rule they are following says: "Use 'me' after prepositions when it
> > stands alone but use 'I' when in coordination with another noun or
> > pronoun."
>
> I've never heard of this rule! Where is it taught?
In either this newsgroup or alt.usage.english , one person said that it had
appeared in an Australian usage guide, which would certainly be interesting
if true. Other posters in both groups have claimed that they had teachers
who were quite insistent that "between you and I was the correct
construction. However, while I would expect this construction to be used by
more standard speakers than nonstandard speakers, it is itself nonstandard,
and thus would generally *not* be taught in schools.
Kenneth G. Wilson, in *The Columbia Guide to Standard American English,*
shows a couple of examples of similar constructions using other pronouns.
From
http://www.bartleby.com/68/31/831.html
"between he and his mother"
"between the boys and we"
The reason that it is a nonstandard rule, rather than simply a nonstandard
idiom, is that it can explain more than simply one expression. Consider the
following hypothetical examples of usages uttered by a single speaker:
"between you and I"
"between him and I"
"between John and I"
"between the teacher, the principal, and I"
"between her and I"
"to her and I"
"to me"
to him"
"between him and her"
"to John and her"
Such a speaker is using a rule in which "I," when it appears in coordination
with a noun or another pronoun as the object of a preposition, is correct in
a situation in which standard grammar would call for a "me," but he doesn't
have a similar coordination rule for "he" or "she."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Carmen L. Abruzzi
> On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 10:28:21 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> I wonder why you find elegance only in the omission of a word.
>
> I never said "only"; you inferred that.
OK, then would you find it an increase in elegance to remodel English
personal pronouns so that each person and number has only one form for both
subject and object, as we currently have for "you" and "it"? Although I
think that the concept of increased or decreased "elegance" in grammar is
largely meaningless, this is one example I can think of in which remodelling
English grammar _could_ allow us to do more with less.
>> Do you not think it inelegant to have these differing forms
>> which serve no purpose other than to save a word or two here
>> and there in a relatively uncommon construction; but which
>> must be used in all constructions although they usually
>> contribute nothing to the meaning?
>
> You propose, then, that we say and write things like--
>
> "Him went to town, kemosabe."
>
> ??
>
> Or should it be--
>
> "Sam lent he some money."
>
> ??
I am not proposing anything; I am asking whether you think that doing so
(choose one or the other form, to your liking) would increase the overall
"elegance" of English grammar, and why you think it would or would not.
Daniel James
wrote:
> ... so "diskette" it will have to be.
.. and so also "disk", I meant to add.
> ecentric
I really must get a better keyboard! Or start to proofread what I've
just typed, or something.
TSHB: "eccentric" (it takes one to know one).
Pah!
Cheers,
Daniel.
Eric Walker
I reckon that the question is about as reasonable as Lewis
Carroll's classic "Why is a mouse when it spins?"
"Remodelling" the English language is as meaningless as setting
up an entirely new artificial language (which many have done,
to no practical purpose). We realistically deal with a _status
quo_ and potential *incremental* changes to that status. To
ask whether this or that drastic, wholesale revision would be
"good" or "bad" is impossible of answer, because not all the
consequences can be foreseen: it is difficult enough with the
modest incremental potential changes that come up day to day.
I would remark, simply to not seem to be completely ducking the
question, that case appears to be a deep quality of names
(nouns and pronouns). I often mock linguists when they exceed
the bounds of their expertise and comment on practical English
grammar, as I would a professor of fluid mechanics who held
himself out as an expert plumber owing solely to his academic
knowledge; but within their proper sphere, the work of
linguists is useful and productive of insights into that most
complex of human activities, language. And it seems to be
clear consensus among linguists that an important and inherent
property of words of that large class that we classically call
nouns (including pronouns) is something that corresponds
with--and is called by the same name as--classic grammar's
"case". The "deep" cases may not (there appear to be diverse
opinions on the numbers and types of such cases) correspond
exactly with classic grammar's "cases", in English or any
language, but neither are they orthogonal. It thus seems to me
that it would be folly to seek to willfully discard the mark of
a deep and intrinsic quality of a large class of words.
English is, in broad scope, moving from a synthetic language to
an analytic language; but a good part of its immense power of
expression relative to many other tongues is that it contains
both the older and the newer forms, and we can usually use
either as the occasion seems to merit. Rash indeed would be he
who pronounces that one or the other form ought to be stricken
from the lists of forms available to the careful and thoughtful
user of this delightful tongue.
Raymond S. Wise
news:rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net...
I think it *is* worthwhile to consider artificial dialects of English.
Considering just the first person singular pronoun, if we were to substitute
French rules for English ones, then "between you and me" would be
grammatically correct, and "Me, I don't agree" a strengthened form of "I
don't agree," would be grammatical. "She and me don't agree" would be
grammatically correct. How would one represent the form of the first person
singular pronoun used as a direct object, as in "Elle m'a vu" ( = "She saw
me" )? It doesn't seem like it would make a difference if we consistently
used "I" or instead chose to consistently use "me," so that if we chose "I"
then "She I saw" would mean "She saw me."
If we were to substitute Esperanto rules, "between you and I" would be
correct as would "She and I don't agree" and "She doesn't agree with I."
"She saw me" would be grammatically correct, as would "Me saw she" with the
same meaning.
If we were to substitute the rules of Chinese, then "between you and I"
would be correct, as would "She and I don't agree" and "She doesn't agree
with I" and "She saw I."
What reason is there to believe that the rules of any of the above
artificial dialects which have subjective and objective forms of "I" would
not communicate just as well as English with the rules which we currently
have? What reason is there to believe that we even need subjective and
objective forms? If you believe that Chinese has case (as it appears that
you do), then an English dialect with only the "I" form of the first person
singular pronoun would also have case.
How does this apply to the question of "between you and I"? Well, in the
case of "I used in coordination"--and where, for the sake of discussion, the
coordination rule is applied only to "I/me" and to no other pronoun
pair--"She and I don't agree" and "He doesn't agree with her and I" and "She
disagrees with me" and "She disagrees with you and I" would all be
grammatically correct. There seems to be no reason to believe that people
speaking such a dialect would suffer any loss of ability to communicate
compared to an English following the traditional grammar rules.
Carmen L. Abruzzi
rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net, "Eric Walker"
<ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> You propose, then, that we say and write things like--
>>>
>>> "Him went to town, kemosabe."
>>>
>>> ??
>>>
>>> Or should it be--
>>>
>>> "Sam lent he some money."
>>>
>>> ??
>>
>> I am not proposing anything; I am asking whether you think
>> that doing so (choose one or the other form, to your liking)
>> would increase the overall "elegance" of English grammar, and
>> why you think it would or would not.
>
> I reckon that the question is about as reasonable as Lewis
> Carroll's classic "Why is a mouse when it spins?"
Agreed. As I said, I think the concept of "elegance" (that is, "doing more
with less") in grammar is pretty meaningless. You can mark case, so that
you eliminate prepositions, but then you have a number of different
case-markings; so in what sense are you doing more with less? You can do
all your grammar by syntax, but then you're stuck with a rigid word-order;
is that really doing "more" with less?
>
> "Remodelling" the English language is as meaningless as setting
> up an entirely new artificial language (which many have done,
> to no practical purpose). We realistically deal with a _status
> quo_ and potential *incremental* changes to that status. To
> ask whether this or that drastic, wholesale revision would be
> "good" or "bad" is impossible of answer, because not all the
> consequences can be foreseen: it is difficult enough with the
> modest incremental potential changes that come up day to day.
I don't think that regularizing the personal pronouns would be a "drastic,
wholesale revision of grammar". We're talking about a few relict case-forms
which no longer serve to mark case in any practical sense, anyway.
Sure, it sounds funny to say "me saw it", but it isn't grammatically
different from "I saw it". If the use of "me" rather than "I" had any
grammatical significance, then "me saw it" would be instantly understood to
mean the same as "it saw me"; it would not seem like some pathetic,
ill-formed attempt at "I saw it".
> I would remark, simply to not seem to be completely ducking the
> question, that case appears to be a deep quality of names
> (nouns and pronouns). I often mock linguists when they exceed
> the bounds of their expertise and comment on practical English
> grammar, as I would a professor of fluid mechanics who held
> himself out as an expert plumber owing solely to his academic
> knowledge; but within their proper sphere, the work of
> linguists is useful and productive of insights into that most
> complex of human activities, language. And it seems to be
> clear consensus among linguists that an important and inherent
> property of words of that large class that we classically call
> nouns (including pronouns) is something that corresponds
> with--and is called by the same name as--classic grammar's
> "case". The "deep" cases may not (there appear to be diverse
> opinions on the numbers and types of such cases) correspond
> exactly with classic grammar's "cases", in English or any
> language, but neither are they orthogonal.
They seem to be pretty orthogonal to me. When "I" in "I received a book" is
called a "dative", you got yourself some pretty heavy-duty orthogonality
going on, classical-case-wise.
> It thus seems to me
> that it would be folly to seek to willfully discard the mark of
> a deep and intrinsic quality of a large class of words.
Do you think that modern English is the product of folly, then? Or was its
discarding of case-marking not "willful"?
>
> English is, in broad scope, moving from a synthetic language to
> an analytic language;
Is there any good reason to put this in the progressive rather than the
perfect?
> but a good part of its immense power of
> expression relative to many other tongues
> is that it contains
> both the older and the newer forms, and we can usually use
> either as the occasion seems to merit.
Apart from "who" or "whom" in objective usages, where we can choose either
an older case-marked form or a newer unmarked form?
Or are you talking about expressing nonstandard vs. standard usage, like "Me
and Jimmy went" vs. "Jimmy and I went"; "between you and me" vs. "between
you and I"?
> Rash indeed would be he
> who pronounces that one or the other form ought to be stricken
> from the lists of forms available to the careful and thoughtful
> user of this delightful tongue.
>
Like singular "they".
Matti Lamprhey
> [...]
> I reckon that the question is about as reasonable as Lewis
> Carroll's classic "Why is a mouse when it spins?"
Lewis Carroll's?
Matti
Eric Walker
Well, there's the old memory playing tricks again: I thought,
to a certainty, that that was one of the riddles at The Mad
Hatter's Tea Party, but not so after all.
I am unable to identify a source for this question. Does
anyone know the source?
Matti Lamprhey
> Matti Lamprhey wrote:
> >"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote...
> >
> >> [...]
> >> I reckon that the question is about as reasonable as Lewis
> >> Carroll's classic "Why is a mouse when it spins?"
> >
> >Lewis Carroll's?
>
> Well, there's the old memory playing tricks again: I thought,
> to a certainty, that that was one of the riddles at The Mad
> Hatter's Tea Party, but not so after all.
>
> I am unable to identify a source for this question. Does
> anyone know the source?
I've posted about this puzzle in AUE in the past. It was popularized in
_Dr Who_ as the first words of Tom Baker on regenerating from Jon
Pertwee. However, my father was using it long before that. He was in
the RAF during WWII, and this page suggests that the RAF may have been
the source:
http://www.jadebox.com/nilsson/et1997-2.html#WHYISAMOUSETHATSPINS
Matti
Eric Walker
[...]
The crux of the long post here elided is, to my mind:
>There seems to be no reason to believe that people speaking
>such a dialect would suffer any loss of ability to communicate
>compared to an English following the traditional grammar
>rules.
"Seems" is a chancey word. Even when proposed or arising
language changes are incremental, it is often difficult to
reliably foresee what effects, over time, will ensue from their
adoption. What seems to you or to me probable may overlook
some eventual lack (or gain) in power that is not at first look
obvious.
Moreover, my concern, always, is maximization of _immediate_
ability to convey thoughts. That maximum invariably comes from
following the *current* established rules (as I have countless
times said, that there _be_ known and followed rules is much
more important than, within reason, just what those rules are).
One nontrivial element of optimum communication is what I have
before called the principle of least cervical stress: what form
makes the fewest heads snap up sharply when heard? In applying
it, one must of course decide the nature of one's target
audience--as one must when deducing from usage the meanings of
words or the extant rules of grammar. But it is noteworthy, as
I have said before, that many who themselves cannot or do not
form castings that are regular by extant grammar can understand
and accept with little or no cervical stress the correct (by
extant rule) equivalents. The degree to which, for example,
"It was he" will cause cervical stress in those who themselves
would say "It was him" is, in my opinion, vastly overstated,
while "It was him" will cause at least some such stress for
those who do say "It was he".
What "ought to be" and "what might be" in English are
irrelevant, and of what is called "academic" interest at most.
Eric Walker
>On 11/7/03 10:44 PM, in article
>rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net, "Eric
>Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You propose, then, that we say and write things like--
>>>>
>>>> "Him went to town, kemosabe."
>>>>
>>>> ??
>>>>
>>>> Or should it be--
>>>>
>>>> "Sam lent he some money."
>>>>
>>>> ??
>>>
>>> I am not proposing anything; I am asking whether you think
>>> that doing so (choose one or the other form, to your
>>> liking) would increase the overall "elegance" of English
>>> grammar, and why you think it would or would not.
>>
>> I reckon that the question is about as reasonable as Lewis
>> Carroll's classic "Why is a mouse when it spins?"
>
>Agreed. As I said, I think the concept of "elegance" (that
>is, "doing more with less") in grammar is pretty meaningless.
That is a peculiar thought. Do you mean that doing more with
less is impossible, or do you mean that doing more with less is
pointless? If either--and not some unobvious third thing--I
think the proposition folly.
>You can mark case, so that you eliminate prepositions, but
>then you have a number of different case-markings; so in what
>sense are you doing more with less? You can do all your
>grammar by syntax, but then you're stuck with a rigid word-
>order; is that really doing "more" with less?
You are confusing the structures that make language possible
with the end product, language itself. Elegance is wanted in
the end product; quite often, and not just in language, the
more elegant the end product, the more complex the enabling
structure.
It is you, not I, who hypothesizes doing quite away with one
form or the other. A deal of the special power of English
flows from its having available two ways of casting many
expressions of thought. Careful users can choose the form that
best accords with their wants and needs in a given situation.
Complex case structure, and a fully implemented set of
inflections to mark it, make the end language quite terse, and
capable of all sorts of rearrangement for purposes of emphasis.
What prepositions and other like changes bring is a degree of
subtlety often not available through case forms: there are,
even in Finnish, only so many cases, whereas there is no limit
to the number of prepositions that can be coined (though
English only uses, what, 150 or so?).[1] We thus tend to use
case form where it suffices and syntactical form where case
alone is insufficient to our thought. That is becoming less
and less possible as case structure erodes, which is not A Good
Thing, for it subtracts from that balanced-attack ability of
the tongue. Putting it another way, it appears, to me anyway,
that a language with both synthetic and analytic tools for
expressing thought possesses optimal expressive power.
[...]
>I don't think that regularizing the personal pronouns would be
>a "drastic, wholesale revision of grammar". We're talking
>about a few relict case-forms which no longer serve to mark
>case in any practical sense, anyway.
No, you are effectively proposing discarding of case as a
concept in English. I have explained my objections to that.
>Sure, it sounds funny to say "me saw it", but it isn't
>grammatically different from "I saw it".
By what grammar? Not extant English grammar.
>If the use of "me" rather than "I" had any grammatical
>significance, then "me saw it" would be instantly understood
>to mean the same as "it saw me"; it would not seem like some
>pathetic, ill-formed attempt at "I saw it".
Modern English places much emphasis on certain word orders.
The classic subject-verb-object is by no means cast in stone,
but we can no longer simply rearrange it randomly, but we _can_
rearrange it: "Her I dislike, but him I hate" is perfectly
sound English, yet breaches the traditional SVO order; but "Her
dislike I, but him hate I" is pushing too far. But, though I
am no historian of the tongue, I'd not be surprised to find
that just those castings, or something much like in form,
would, at some time in the language's history, have passed as
sound English. If so, have we gained by having those forms no
longer available? In any event, we can write "Me it saw" and
our meaning is clear enough (given an appropriate context).
[...]
>They [cases recognized by contemporary linguists] seem to be
>pretty orthogonal [to conventional "cases"] to me. When "I"
>in "I received a book" is called a "dative", you got yourself
>some pretty heavy-duty orthogonality going on, classical-case-
>wise.
As I have repeatedly said, contemporary linguists have yet to
come close to putting their house in order, and so it is no
surprise to find bizarre particular analyses. But it remains
so that a property rooted in a word's function in a sentence
and called "case" is seen as an essential component of the
language. In classical English grammar, the pedagogical and
practical needs have historically been filled by four to five
cases; how many a linguist feels are needed, and what they may
be, and how they relate to the classical ones, will vary--quite
a bit, I think--depending on which linguist you inquire of, but
on the whole I think examples like the one you cite are not
common.
As an example of how disordered the linguistic house remains:
He further discusses case theory in the Chomskyan framework
(both in Government & Binding theory and in the more recent
Minimalist Program), the difference between semantic roles
and grammatical relations, Panini's karaka theory,
Fillmore's influential Case Grammar, Relational Grammar,
John Anderson's Localist Case Grammar and Starosta's
Lexicase. Blake summarizes the main tenets of these
theories with respect to case in a concise yet clear way,
though without positioning himself.
"Positioning" oneself being akin to saying "This is so, that is
not", it's no wonder the fellow doesn't "position" himself.
[...]
>> English is, in broad scope, moving from a synthetic language
>> to an analytic language;
>
>Is there any good reason to put this in the progressive rather
>than the perfect?
Yes: your burning desire to utterly squash case has yet to be
implemented.
>> . . . a good part of its immense power of expression
>> relative to many other tongues is that it contains
>> both the older and the newer forms, and we can usually use
>> either as the occasion seems to merit.
>
>Apart from "who" or "whom" in objective usages, where we can
>choose either an older case-marked form or a newer unmarked
>form?
I was speaking more generally. We can for example, say "I gave
her flowers" or "I gave flowers to her"; we can say "John's
hat" or "the hat of John"; we can say "He wrote me that I
should come at once" or "He wrote me to come at once"; and
there are numerous like instances--as I have always said, I am
very bad at conjuring examples--where older and newer forms of
expressing a given idea are both available, allowing a choice
that best fits, if nothing else, the rhythm of our prose.
[...]
>> Rash indeed would be he who pronounces that one or the
>> other form ought to be stricken from the lists of forms
>> available to the careful and thoughtful user of this
>> delightful tongue.
>>
>Like singular "they".
No, thoroughly unlike singular "they". We speak here of
established _systems_--literally, _systematic_ methods--of
expressing thought in English. The singular "they" fits into
no such established system: it is a needless irregularity that,
if condoned, destroys a large element of the existing system,
agreement of number.
[1] That was a guess from eyeballing a list of the commonest,
but web sources seem to confirm the approximate number.
Eric Walker
[...]
>. . . this page suggests that the RAF may have been the
>source:
>http://www.jadebox.com/nilsson/et1997-2.html#WHYISAMOUSETHATSP
INS
I just have a feeling that it's rather older yet, but no data.
Carmen L. Abruzzi
>
>> I don't think that regularizing the personal pronouns would be
>> a "drastic, wholesale revision of grammar". We're talking
>> about a few relict case-forms which no longer serve to mark
>> case in any practical sense, anyway.
>
> No, you are effectively proposing discarding of case as a
> concept in English. I have explained my objections to that.
How could doing away with the few remaining distinct case-forms of English
cause the discarding of case as a concept? Are you saying that the survival
of "case", as you define it, depends on having a few remaining case forms?
>
>> Sure, it sounds funny to say "me saw it", but it isn't
>> grammatically different from "I saw it".
>
> By what grammar? Not extant English grammar.
OK, it isn't syntactically different by extant English grammar.
>
>> If the use of "me" rather than "I" had any grammatical
>> significance, then "me saw it" would be instantly understood
>> to mean the same as "it saw me"; it would not seem like some
>> pathetic, ill-formed attempt at "I saw it".
>
> Modern English places much emphasis on certain word orders.
> The classic subject-verb-object is by no means cast in stone,
> but we can no longer simply rearrange it randomly, but we _can_
> rearrange it: "Her I dislike, but him I hate" is perfectly
> sound English, yet breaches the traditional SVO order;
Yes, but we can equally say "John you dislike, but Mary you hate". This
rearrangement does not require case-marking. So, again, are you saying that
"John" and "Mary"'s being in what you call the "accusative" case, and
"you"'s being in the "nominative" case depend upon the existence of distinct
form for these cases in words which do not even appear in the sentence?
> but "Her
> dislike I, but him hate I" is pushing too far. But, though I
> am no historian of the tongue, I'd not be surprised to find
> that just those castings, or something much like in form,
> would, at some time in the language's history, have passed as
> sound English. If so, have we gained by having those forms no
> longer available?
We have neither gained nor lost. The question is meaningless, as you said
above.
> In any event, we can write "Me it saw" and
> our meaning is clear enough (given an appropriate context).
"Me it saw" is clear enough? Well then so is "millennium hand and shrimp"
Carmen L. Abruzzi
>>> English is, in broad scope, moving from a synthetic language
>>> to an analytic language;
>>
>> Is there any good reason to put this in the progressive rather
>> than the perfect?
>
> Yes: your burning desire to utterly squash case has yet to be
> implemented.
Now you seem to be implying that a fully analytic language would _not_ have
case. I agree with this (or, rather, I prefer strict usage of the term
"case" that would make this statement meaningful), but it's at odds with
your numerous arguments about the inherent existence of case in any
language, and it's at odds with the modern linguistic usage of the term
"case".
>
>>> . . . a good part of its immense power of expression
>>> relative to many other tongues is that it contains
>>> both the older and the newer forms, and we can usually use
>>> either as the occasion seems to merit.
>>
>> Apart from "who" or "whom" in objective usages, where we can
>> choose either an older case-marked form or a newer unmarked
>> form?
>
> I was speaking more generally. We can for example, say "I gave
> her flowers" or "I gave flowers to her"; we can say "John's
> hat" or "the hat of John";
(Yes, we can say that, if we wish to communicate the message "I am not a
native speaker of English", with elegance and precision.)
> we can say "He wrote me that I
> should come at once" or "He wrote me to come at once"; and
> there are numerous like instances--as I have always said, I am
> very bad at conjuring examples--where older and newer forms of
> expressing a given idea are both available, allowing a choice
> that best fits, if nothing else, the rhythm of our prose.
And you think that other languages do not have similar variation available?
That older forms of English must have had only one of each of these two
constructions; never a third (or fourth, or fifth...) form, now lost?
Schultz
> <...> (unless, of course, we have reason to believe that
> the speaker or writer has been influenced to too many usenet
> posts from anti-case revisionists); <...>
Blaming the messenger.
\\P. Schultz
Schultz
> <...> "Fred likes Mary more than you" is
> a rather unlikely sentence in any sense <...>
How so?
Oh, you said "it", didn't you? Well, point made, anyway.
\\P. Schultz
Eric Walker
>On 11/8/03 1:00 PM, in article
>rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net,
>"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>>> I don't think that regularizing the personal pronouns would
>>> be a "drastic, wholesale revision of grammar". We're
>>> talking about a few relict case-forms which no longer serve
>>> to mark case in any practical sense, anyway.
>>
>> No, you are effectively proposing discarding of case as a
>> concept in English. I have explained my objections to that.
>
>How could doing away with the few remaining distinct case-
>forms of English cause the discarding of case as a concept?
>Are you saying that the survival of "case", as you define it,
>depends on having a few remaining case forms?
No. But there is a vast and crucial difference between the
existence of something and the existence of the _concept_ of
that something (ask the shade of Galileo).
Look at the situation now: even with a lively set of case
inflections remaining, a substantial fraction of native English
speakers have little or no idea what case is, plus there is a
nontrivial faction, some not so far away, arguing vehemently
that there is no "case" in English or (as the lawyers say) in
the alternative, that whatever little there is ought, in the
name of decency, to be taken out and shot.
If the remaining inflections--which are markers of case, not
case itself--disappear, who then will understand what case is
and signifies? The linguists, who cannot themselves come close
to agreement on anything much besides that case does exist and
is apparently a deep quality of speech, and who speak almost
exclusively to each other and rarely if ever to the world,
would be left as virtually the sole keepers of the concept of
case. If they _are_ correct (as I believe) in asserting that
case is a deep property in language, then it deserves to be in
the forefront of the mind of anyone interested in using
language wisely and well.
>>> If the use of "me" rather than "I" had any grammatical
>>> significance, then "me saw it" would be instantly
>>> understood to mean the same as "it saw me"; it would not
>>> seem like some pathetic, ill-formed attempt at "I saw it".
>>
>> Modern English places much emphasis on certain word orders.
>> The classic subject-verb-object is by no means cast in
>> stone, but we can no longer simply rearrange it randomly,
>> but we _can_ rearrange it: "Her I dislike, but him I hate"
>> is perfectly sound English, yet breaches the traditional SVO
>> order;
>
>Yes, but we can equally say "John you dislike, but Mary you
>hate". This rearrangement does not require case-marking. So,
>again, are you saying that "John" and "Mary"'s being in what
>you call the "accusative" case, and "you"'s being in the
>"nominative" case depend upon the existence of distinct form
>for these cases in words which do not even appear in the
>sentence?
No; I have never said anything save the direct opposite of
that. Case is a property of a particular word in a particular
sentence; whether that word has a distinctive morphological
variant that evidences that case is immaterial to its
possessing case.
As I have said many a time, change is not tautologically
equivalent to improvement. That we have acquired means to
express those aspects of our thought manifested by case
markings in ways other than by those markings is augmentation;
but to assume that those augmentations have thus rendered case
markings superfluous or inferior is just flat-out silly.
>> but "Her dislike I, but him hate I" is pushing too far.
>> But, though I am no historian of the tongue, I'd not be
>> surprised to find that just those castings, or something
>> much like in form, would, at some time in the language's
>> history, have passed as sound English. If so, have we
>> gained by having those forms no longer available?
>
>We have neither gained nor lost. The question is meaningless,
>as you said above.
That is not any part of what I said is meaningless. The matter
of what thoughts we can express with what precision and
elegance by means of what tools is never meaningless; the
substantive matter can be debated, but only within the fairly
narrow limits imposed by the reality of the language available
to us. To repeat: we are, I firmly believe, best served by our
tongue when we have available to us _both_ synthetic and
analytic means of expressing our thought. It is that simple.
>> In any event, we can write "Me it saw" and our meaning is
>clear enough (given an appropriate context).
>
>"Me it saw" is clear enough? Well then so is "millennium hand
>and shrimp" (given an appropriate context).
Harry and I took cover the moment we saw the tiger prowling
the edge of our camp. Him it did not see. Me it saw.
Thank God Harry had grabbed a rifle, or I wouldn't be here
to tell the tale.
More meaningful, and more plausible as a natural English
construction, I'd say, than "Millennium hand and shrimp."
My lady has just come home from knee-replacement surgery, and I
am presently at the stage of activity of a one-legged man at an
ass-kicking convention, and have little spare time for usenet.
I'd rather not spend any more of that scant time on threads as
inane as this, so I here bow out.
You write and speak the English you prefer, and I'll write and
speak the English I prefer, and those whom you address will
presumably be happy, and those whom I address will presumably
be happy, and what more could anyone ask?
As Edward R. Murrow often and famously said, Good night and
good luck.
Howard G
The uncapitalized "gramophone" is from a tradename. It's like calling a
refrigerator a "Frigidaire" or a cola drink a "Coke".
Dr Robin Bignall
My father was too old to be in WWII, although he tried to volunteer. I
remember "Why is a mouse when it spins?" as being one of his riddles when I
was tiny, possibly even during the war, but don't see how he could have
heard it from the RAF. We didn't get out much during the war. I wonder if
it was broadcast on the wireless?
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Quiet part of Hertfordshire
England
Carmen L. Abruzzi
> On Sat, 08 Nov 2003 14:47:07 -0800, Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
>> On 11/8/03 1:00 PM, in article
>> rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net,
>> "Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> I don't think that regularizing the personal pronouns would
>>>> be a "drastic, wholesale revision of grammar". We're
>>>> talking about a few relict case-forms which no longer serve
>>>> to mark case in any practical sense, anyway.
>>>
>>> No, you are effectively proposing discarding of case as a
>>> concept in English. I have explained my objections to that.
>>
>> How could doing away with the few remaining distinct case-
>> forms of English cause the discarding of case as a concept?
>> Are you saying that the survival of "case", as you define it,
>> depends on having a few remaining case forms?
>
> No. But there is a vast and crucial difference between the
> existence of something and the existence of the _concept_ of
> that something (ask the shade of Galileo).
>
> Look at the situation now: even with a lively set of case
> inflections remaining,
What language are you talking about here? "A lively set of case inflections
remaining" certainly doesn't characterize modern English.
> a substantial fraction of native English
> speakers have little or no idea what case is,
So? One doesn't have to know what "case" is to use it--and use it
effectively--any more than one has to understand anatomy or physics to use
one's arm.
> plus there is a
> nontrivial faction, some not so far away, arguing vehemently
> that there is no "case" in English
Yes, and we all argue vehemently that there are no horses in automobile
engines, even though their power is measured as "horsepower". BTW, what is
the point of this oblique allusion "some not so far away"? This is at least
the second time you've used it when responding the very person you seem to
mean by it. I must say I find it rather sinister.
> or (as the lawyers say) in
> the alternative, that whatever little there is ought, in the
> name of decency, to be taken out and shot.
Now who has ever said that?
>
> If the remaining inflections--which are markers of case, not
> case itself--disappear, who then will understand what case is
> and signifies? The linguists, who cannot themselves come close
> to agreement on anything much besides that case does exist and
> is apparently a deep quality of speech, and who speak almost
> exclusively to each other and rarely if ever to the world,
> would be left as virtually the sole keepers of the concept of
> case. If they _are_ correct (as I believe) in asserting that
> case is a deep property in language, then it deserves to be in
> the forefront of the mind of anyone interested in using
> language wisely and well.
Nonsense. I repeat, one does not have to understand case to use it any more
than one needs to understand human anatomy to walk down the street. Do you
stop and think, "well now I must contract the bicep of my right arm while
relaxing the tricep, so that I might bring this cup up to my lips, which
lips I must now purse, while at the same time expanding the lungs to create
an inward flow of air..."?? Of course not.
I do not need to "assume" that modern English case-markings are superfluous,
any more than I need to "assume" that the sky is blue and grass is green. It
is as obvious a fact as anything could be.
Modern English case-markings do not augment word order; word order trumps
them completely. That the use of the wrong form sounds weird or inane is
beside the point, it's the meaning conveyed that tells us that these
case-forms are not influencing anything and are entirely subordinate to
position. Even in those rare instances in which word order differs from the
normal SOV, it's stress that conveys the meaning not case-form.
As for "inferior", who has ever said that English case-forms are "inferior"?
What could that possibly mean, anyway?
>
>>> but "Her dislike I, but him hate I" is pushing too far.
>>> But, though I am no historian of the tongue, I'd not be
>>> surprised to find that just those castings, or something
>>> much like in form, would, at some time in the language's
>>> history, have passed as sound English. If so, have we
>>> gained by having those forms no longer available?
>>
>> We have neither gained nor lost. The question is meaningless,
>> as you said above.
>
> That is not any part of what I said is meaningless. The matter
> of what thoughts we can express with what precision and
> elegance by means of what tools is never meaningless; the
> substantive matter can be debated, but only within the fairly
> narrow limits imposed by the reality of the language available
> to us. To repeat: we are, I firmly believe, best served by our
> tongue when we have available to us _both_ synthetic and
> analytic means of expressing our thought. It is that simple.
>
>>> In any event, we can write "Me it saw" and our meaning is
>> clear enough (given an appropriate context).
>>
>> "Me it saw" is clear enough? Well then so is "millennium hand
>> and shrimp" (given an appropriate context).
>
> Harry and I took cover the moment we saw the tiger prowling
> the edge of our camp. Him it did not see. Me it saw.
> Thank God Harry had grabbed a rifle, or I wouldn't be here
> to tell the tale.
To the extent that such an utterance is at all likely, it depends on an
unusual stress placed on "him" and "me", not on their morphology, as is
easily demonstrated by replacing both "I" and "me" with "you". "You it saw"
works just as well in context, with no differentiation of form. The objects
should probably be set aside with commas to indicate the stress pattern:
"him, it did not see", "me, it saw", etc.
But I think these are realistically very unlikely constructions. Much more
likely would be "It didn't see him, but it _did_ see me".
>
> More meaningful, and more plausible as a natural English
> construction, I'd say, than "Millennium hand and shrimp."
Perhaps.
>
> My lady has just come home from knee-replacement surgery, and I
> am presently at the stage of activity of a one-legged man at an
> ass-kicking convention, and have little spare time for usenet.
> I'd rather not spend any more of that scant time on threads as
> inane as this, so I here bow out.
Best wishes to you and your lady. May she soon be kicking ass herself.
>
> You write and speak the English you prefer, and I'll write and
> speak the English I prefer, and those whom you address will
> presumably be happy, and those whom I address will presumably
> be happy, and what more could anyone ask?
Ah, yes. "Can't we all just get along" as someone once famously said.
>
> As Edward R. Murrow often and famously said, Good night and
> good luck.
>
Oh dear, must've got that "famously" subliminally.
Odysseus
>
> On Sat, 8 Nov 2003 19:46:56 -0000, Matti Lamprhey wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >. . . this page suggests that the RAF may have been the
> >source:
> >http://www.jadebox.com/nilsson/et1997-2.html#WHYISAMOUSETHATSP
> INS
>
> I just have a feeling that it's rather older yet, but no data.
>
usage your feeling would seem justified; the phrase appears in
Sinclair Lewis's _Babbitt_, 1922, in a context that suggests it
already had some currency as a 'stock' piece of nonsense.
In case the cited page doesn't mention it, the canonical answer to
the question appears to be "Because the higher (it goes) the fewer."
--
Odysseus
Raymond S. Wise
news:rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.individual.net...
I don't know how we can measure "cervical stress," but I'm quite sure that
psychologists and neurologists could devise a method of using the
electroencephalograph to measure a person's recognition of a usage as
unusual: this would work for usages found to be both pleasing--as some novel
use of words in jokes must be--and irritating.
Since most speakers, both standard and nonstandard, would say "It was him"
instead of "It was he," I would expect such speakers to find "It was he"
somewhat surprising, and would expect an EEG to be able to demonstrate that.
On the other hand, when subjects who ordinarily say "It was he" were
presented with a speaker saying "It was him," I would expect the EEG to
record little reaction, because people who say "It was he" live in a world
in which people of all classes and levels of education say "It was him": It
would thus be no novelty, and so would rarely elicit a marked response.
>
> What "ought to be" and "what might be" in English are
> irrelevant, and of what is called "academic" interest at most.
Well, it's got *my* "academic" interest. If I were to use an artificial
dialect of English to test an aspect of human psychology and/or speech,
whether the predictions I made were found to be correct or not would test
the theory about psychology and/or speech which led me to make the
predictions.
I am quite confident that the predictions I made earlier in this post would
be borne out. If they were in fact found *not* to be true, I would have to
abandon the hypotheses on which I based them. And if you could ever find a
means to measure this "cervical stress" you hypothesize, you also could test
your predictions using an artificial dialect of English.
Perhaps the following implications of this have occurred to you: This
constitutes the sort of test which makes linguistics at least to some extent
a science rather than purely a philosophical endeavor.
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> Modern English case-markings do not augment word order; word order trumps
> them completely. That the use of the wrong form sounds weird or inane is
> beside the point, it's the meaning conveyed that tells us that these
> case-forms are not influencing anything and are entirely subordinate to
> position. Even in those rare instances in which word order differs from the
> normal SOV, it's stress that conveys the meaning not case-form.
[ ... ]
I have made this same point in several postings to several threads
in which Eric Walker and I kick this topic around. To put it my
way: The frequency with which English speakers commit "errors" in
the choice of case forms (when such choices are available) is
evidence that, for nouns and pronouns, case no longer controls
meaning. If case affected meaning, we wouldn't be seeing all these
"errors," any more than we would encounter people saying "He arrive"
when they mean "He arrived" (nonstandard dialects excepted).
Eric argues for a concept of "case" independent of inflection. For
example, I think he would call the "him" of "I gave the bottle to
him" a dative but the "him" of "I want you to find him" an
accusative. He gets much of this from Curme's grammar, which makes
much use of Latin grammar terms in its analysis of English grammar.
Eric is not necessarily wrong. It depends on how you look at
things. I don't look at them the way he does. Neither do you. But
he isn't going to budge. He may have learned his grammar long, long
ago in a galaxy far, far away, but it's his, and it's coherent, and
who are we to tell him that it's superfluous? (And yet we do tell
him, to what purpose?)
This debate will last until people tire of it. That doesn't seem to
have happened yet.
--
Bob Lieblich
But I can't
Carmen L. Abruzzi
"Carmen L. Abruzzi" <carmenl...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Modern English case-markings do not augment word order; word order trumps
> them completely. That the use of the wrong form sounds weird or inane is
> beside the point, it's the meaning conveyed that tells us that these
> case-forms are not influencing anything and are entirely subordinate to
> position. Even in those rare instances in which word order differs from the
> normal SOV, it's stress that conveys the meaning not case-form.
Sorry, that should be "the normal SVO", "subject-verb-object", which is the
normal word order in an English sentence. There are plenty of languages in
which this is not the normal word order, Japanese uses SOV, "I him see" is
the normal order, Welsh use VSO, "See I him".
Wes Groleau
> Nonsense. I repeat, one does not have to understand case to use it any more
> than one needs to understand human anatomy to walk down the street. Do you
> stop and think, "well now I must contract the bicep of my right arm while
> relaxing the tricep, so that I might bring this cup up to my lips, which
> lips I must now purse, while at the same time expanding the lungs to create
> an inward flow of air..."?? Of course not.
And yet we somehow think this is the way to learn
to speak a second language.
--
Wes Groleau
"Grant me the serenity to accept those I cannot change;
the courage to change the one I can;
and the wisdom to know it's me."
-- unknown
John Flynn
> Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
>> Nonsense. I repeat, one does not have to understand case to use it
>> any more than one needs to understand human anatomy to walk down the
>> street. Do you stop and think, "well now I must contract the bicep
>> of my right arm while relaxing the tricep, so that I might bring this
>> cup up to my lips, which lips I must now purse, while at the same
>> time expanding the lungs to create an inward flow of air..."?? Of
>> course not.
>
> And yet we somehow think this is the way to learn
> to speak a second language.
Yes, but only for people who are past that stage of their early lives
when language acquisition IS subconscious. Once you get into your teens,
that facility is no longer there and you do need to be taught as in the
"drinking" example that Carmen gave above. If you learn a second language
at the same time as your first (or shortly after -- for varying values of
"shortly") then there's no need for the explicit-instruction method.
--
johnF
"I omit as unnecessarily painful and distressing the ejaculations and prayers
which, in the months of December and January, appear for the first time and
become increasingly frequent." -- _The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral_, MR James
Daniel James
> [I wrote]
> > More "modern" players (even clockwork ones
> > playing shellac dis[c/k]s at 78rpm) are called "Gramophones".
> refrigerator a "Frigidaire" or a cola drink a "Coke".
Oops, I shouldn't have capitalized "Gramophone".
The word "phongraph" is also a trade name. Edison called his sound
recording machine a "phonograph" and used the name as a trade name (I
don't know whether it was actually registered as a trademark).
Emile Berliner's later recording devices using disks instead of cylinders
and were called "gramophones" to distinguish them from "phonographs", the
companies Berliner set up to market them used the "gramophone" name as a
trade mark.
There's some intersting stuff here:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edcyldr.html
and some here:
http://www.todotango.com/english/biblioteca/cronicas/fonovsgra.html
.. and doubtless many other places too.
Cheers,
Daniel
--
Disclaimer: The internet is exhaustive but not authoritative.