if I were she/her; taller than him/he; this is she/her; hold ransom
Sriram C. Krishnan
Hi All,
I was wondering which of the following is correct:
1. If I were she ..... or
2. If I were her .....
3. I am taller than him. or
4. I am taller than he.
When people answer the phone and are asked if they are (say)
Susan, some answer this is she and some others this is her.
Which of the two is correct?
Also, I was wondering if someone could provide me a good example
of the correct usage of the word ransom in the following sense:
Hold the continuity of the marriage ransom to getting what
she wants.
I would very much appreciate an email response to
kris...@eecs.berkeley.edu shedding some light on the above problems
I have with English.
Thanks much,
Sriram
kris...@eecs.berkeley.edu
vertigo
Sriram C. Krishnan wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I was wondering which of the following is correct:
>
> 1. If I were she ..... or
> 2. If I were her .....
If I were she. Commuational (exchange) test: If I were she, I would,
etc. NOT If I were her, me would, etc.
>
> 3. I am taller than him. or
> 4. I am taller than he.
I am taller than he. Commutational (exchange) test: I am taller than
he is NOT I am taller than him is. (Therefore, always complete the
sentence as a commutational test.)
>
> When people answer the phone and are asked if they are (say)
> Susan, some answer this is she and some others this is her.
> Which of the two is correct?
First, I'm never asked if I am Susan, and, if I were, I'd hang up the
phone immediately. Second, "It is I" is the correct locution (form;
construction). Commutational test: "It is I who am speaking" ("I am
speaking"); not "It is me who am speaking ("me am speaking").
>
> Also, I was wondering if someone could provide me a good example
> of the correct usage of the word ransom in the following sense:
> Hold the continuity of the marriage ransom to getting what
> she wants.
Sorry, but I'm confused by this sentence ("continuity," "ransom"). I
assume you mean something like: "the woman is appealing to the survival
or integrity of their marriage (marital union) in order to effect
demands she believes are rightfully hers (as a woman, wife, person). I
may be wrong. Sometimes it pays to recast the entire sentence; start
over again, as it were (hence, to "revise" is to "see again"). Good
luck, and I'm sure you'll get a flood of responses.
--
************************************************
"They are not long, the days of wine and roses."
Ernest Dowson, VITAE SUMMA BREVIS
************************************************
Neil Coffey
In article <35189F...@ms22.hinet.net>, vertigo
<URL:mailto:ver...@ms22.hinet.net> wrote:
> If I were she. Commuational (exchange) test: If I were she, I would,
> etc. NOT If I were her, me would, etc.
No. Think descriptively: virtually nobody would actually say
"if I were she", which is a blatant (and completely ridiculous-sounding)
Latinism.
Neil
Neil Coffey
In article <6fa2ob$sbg$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>, Sriram C. Krishnan
<URL:mailto:kris...@ic.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> I was wondering which of the following is correct:
>
> 1. If I were she ..... or
> 2. If I were her .....
2.
> 3. I am taller than him. or
> 4. I am taller than he.
3.
Occasionally, people who mistakenly think that every language
models its grammar on Latin expect prescriptively that English will
use 1 and 4. But in actual usage this is hardly ever the case, and
most speakers will consider 1 and 4 to sound stupid.
Neil
M. Ranjit Mathews
Neil Coffey wrote:
> Occasionally, people who mistakenly think that every language
> models its grammar on Latin expect prescriptively that English will
> use 1 and 4. But in actual usage this is hardly ever the case, and
> most speakers will consider 1 and 4 to sound stupid.
Why do think English grammar is modeled after Latin. "The cat ate the
mouse" would be a 3 word sentence in Latin; the words can be in any
order without changing the meaning whereas "The mouse ate the cat"
certainly has a different meaning in English. This because English
doesn't have separate subject and object forms for most words.
Lauren Holmes
On Wed, 25 Mar 1998 14:10:43 +0800, vertigo <ver...@ms22.hinet.net>
wrote:
>Sriram C. Krishnan wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I was wondering which of the following is correct:
>>
>> 1. If I were she ..... or
>> 2. If I were her .....
>
>If I were she. Commuational (exchange) test: If I were she, I would,
>etc. NOT If I were her, me would, etc.
While this is correct, few people still use it, even in written
English. It sounds a bit stilted in informal conversation.
For better or worse, most of us would say "If I were her ..."
Outside this group, of course.
--Lauren
vertigo
Just so that there is no misunderstanding, I am NOT a prescriptive
grammarian; I merely responded to a direct, factual, question concerning
what was "correct" and "incorrect," which, in my book, is not the same
as what is "right" and "wrong." In a private correspondence I submitted
the example of the double negative, such as in Stevie Wonder's song,
"You Haven't Done Nothin'." Nobody, I think, wishes Stevie had sung,
"you haven't done anything"! I'm quite fond of double negatives (and
Emerson more than a century ago spoke of the "strength" of the double
negative), among other nonprescriptive grammatical constructions.
Neil Coffey
In article <3519ED...@ms22.hinet.net>, vertigo
<URL:mailto:ver...@ms22.hinet.net> wrote:
> Just so that there is no misunderstanding, I am NOT a prescriptive
> grammarian; I merely responded to a direct, factual, question concerning
> what was "correct" and "incorrect," which, in my book, is not the same
> as what is "right" and "wrong."
But what's the point in a definition of "correct" which implies "sounds
stupid to native speakers"?
Neil
Neil Coffey
In article <3519EBE8...@austin.ibm.com>, M. Ranjit Mathews
<URL:mailto:ran...@austin.ibm.com> wrote:
> Why do think English grammar is modeled after Latin.
It's difficult to say just how many people wholeheartedly believed
this. But there was a time when people were blinded by religion into
believing that English grammar should be modelled on the grammar of
the church.
Nowadays it is to be hoped that people are more sensible. Those
people who say that people somehow "should" say 'if I were she'
are an unfortunate relic of such an era (due often to bad teaching
passed down generations).
You can see what a complete nonesense the 'if I were she' rule is
by considering French, a Romance language which has done away with
free-form subject pronouns altogether.
Neil
vertigo
Why is the sky blue? "To live outside the law you must be honest" (Bob
Dylan said that). There's a difference between knowingly breaking rules
and unknowingly breaking them (I said that). If someone asks me which
is the correct way to hold a fork at a high-class restaurant, I'll
describe the manner; that doesn't mean I subscribe to the manner. On
the contrary, some people demonstrate more etiquette eating with their
fingrs than others do holding their forks in their right (rather than
their left) hand.
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <ant25231...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
<neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>> 1. If I were she ..... or
>> 2. If I were her .....
>
>2.
>
>> 3. I am taller than him. or
>> 4. I am taller than he.
>
>3.
>
>Occasionally, people who mistakenly think that every language
>models its grammar on Latin expect prescriptively that English will
>use 1 and 4. But in actual usage this is hardly ever the case, and
>most speakers will consider 1 and 4 to sound stupid.
OK; I'm willing to follow the rules of English grammar rather than the rules of
Latin. But what rule makes "2" grammatical? It must be something more complex
than "if it follows the verb, it's in the objective case".
And what could be the grammar of "than"?
I am better than him. [?]
I am better at it than him [?]
I am better at playing cards, running the mile, and tying flies than ?
I am better than he is.
Part of the rule must be that if the pronoun following than is the subject of
an explicitly stated verb, it goes in the nominative case. Is that all there
is to it?
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Skitt
vertigo wrote in message <3519ED...@ms22.hinet.net>...
>Lauren Holmes wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 25 Mar 1998 14:10:43 +0800, vertigo
<ver...@ms22.hinet.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Sriram C. Krishnan wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi All,
>> >>
>> >> I was wondering which of the following is correct:
>> >>
>> >> 1. If I were she ..... or
>> >> 2. If I were her .....
>> >
>> >If I were she. Commuational (exchange) test: If I were she, I
would,
>> >etc. NOT If I were her, me would, etc.
>>
>> While this is correct, few people still use it, even in written
>> English. It sounds a bit stilted in informal conversation.
>>
>> For better or worse, most of us would say "If I were her ..."
>>
>> Outside this group, of course.
>>
>> --Lauren
>
>
>Just so that there is no misunderstanding, I am NOT a prescriptive
>grammarian; I merely responded to a direct, factual, question
concerning
>what was "correct" and "incorrect," which, in my book, is not the
same
>as what is "right" and "wrong." In a private correspondence I
submitted
>the example of the double negative, such as in Stevie Wonder's song,
>"You Haven't Done Nothin'." Nobody, I think, wishes Stevie had sung,
>"you haven't done anything"! I'm quite fond of double negatives (and
>Emerson more than a century ago spoke of the "strength" of the double
>negative), among other nonprescriptive grammatical constructions.
There's no need for your disclaimer. I'll go lie down now - I think
I'm experiencing vertigo . . .
--
Skitt http://webpages.metrolink.net/~skitt
mirror: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/5537/
Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com
In article <ant25235...@debussy.demon.co.uk>,
Neil Coffey <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> In article <35189F...@ms22.hinet.net>, vertigo
> <URL:mailto:ver...@ms22.hinet.net> wrote:
>
> > If I were she. Commuational (exchange) test: If I were she, I would,
> > etc. NOT If I were her, me would, etc.
>
> "if I were she", which is a blatant (and completely ridiculous-sounding)
> Latinism.
Neil, I respectfully but emphatically disagree.
All that follows reflects the prescriptive rules of what is considered
"Standard English", NOT a descriptive account of any particular colloquial
usage. This, in and of itself, does not contradict Neil's desire to "think
descriptively", since any prescriptive rule that is widely followed in
Standard English is also, ipso facto, a descriptive account of the usage of
Standard English.
Regarding the case at hand, there are two issues in question with "if I were
she": the use of the past subjunctive "were", and the use of the nominative
pronoun "she".
In English (unlike, for example, French), the verb "be" -- in all tenses and
moods -- does not take a direct object; rather, it is what is known as a
"copula" and takes a predicate nominative. This is why we say "This is she"
when we answer the phone. It is also why Standard English has "If I were
she" rather than "*If I were her".
To be fair, this rule has been lost in many, many dialects of colloquial
English and is probably preserved only in the careful speech of educated
speakers (some would say: affected pedants). I try to speak this way; I
imagine that Truly, Coby, Mark, Henry Churchyard, Polar, and other regulars
here do as well. And to be totally honest, in colloquial conversation, I
sometimes lose this rule. I would probably say something like "Having lived
for 27 years in the Middle East, I sometimes find it hard just to be me when
surrounded by Americans." I cannot imagine myself saying "...hard just to be
I...", though this is prescriptively correct.
The second issue with the example in question is the use of the subjunctive
"were". Although it, too, seems to be dying out in colloquial usage, it is
completely alive and kicking in all educated usage: While I would never
cringe at "I Gotta Be Me", I don't think I would be so forgiving if Tevye
sang "If I *Was a Rich Man".
"If I were she" sounds perfectly natural to me. "If I were her" sounds
informal, but acceptable. "If I was her" sounds like Oakland Ebonics, which
(I am happy to report from the Bay Area) actually does exist.
[sign-off greeting suppressed so as not to anger Teutonic friends across the
Bay]
--
Avi Jacobson, email: Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com | When an idea is
or: Av...@amdocs.com | wanting, a word
| can always be found
Opinions are those of the poster, =NOT= of | to take its place.
Amdocs, Inc. or Pacific Bell Directory. | -- Goethe
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <ant26073...@debussy.demon.co.uk>,
Neil Coffey <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>It's difficult to say just how many people wholeheartedly believed
>this. But there was a time when people were blinded by religion into
>believing that English grammar should be modelled on the grammar of
>the church.
This is a novel theory; I've never heard religion brought into this before.
Latin was also the language of science and of international political
discourse. Latin, as the progenitor of many European languages, was seen as
the pure form of languages that had degenerated, and as the language of a
civilization that was viewed as the ideal was ascribed an elevated status.
And I would guess that some of the folks who tried to formalize English grammar
imported ideas from the language they had learned in terms of a formalized
grammar. But, if I'm not mistaken, lots of the egregious errors of English
grammar were made by people who were communicants of, and even clergy of, a
church that had quite consciously discarded Latin as the language of the church.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Neil Coffey
In article <6fe6fk$ue2$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
<URL:mailto:Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com> wrote:
l
> This, in and of itself, does not contradict Neil's desire to "think
> descriptively", since any prescriptive rule that is widely followed in
> Standard English is also, ipso facto, a descriptive account of the usage of
> Standard English.
A priori, yes. But there's no way that you can argue that the "if
I were she" syndrome falls into the category of "widely followed in
Standard English". It simply isn't.
> Regarding the case at hand, there are two issues in question with "if
> I were she": the use of the past subjunctive "were", and the use of
> the nominative pronoun "she".
You're making two big assumptions here, of course. Firstly, you're
subsuming that there actually exists such a thing as the "past subjunctive"
in English; secondly, you're assuming that the notion of "nominative"
is a valid morphological phenomenon in English (notice I said morphological
and not syntactical: syntactically, we can suppose that case is
universal and that there exists a valid notion of nominative case
in English).
The bit about the subjunctive isn't such a big issue. The fact is that
the form "if I were" _does_ occur reasonably frequently; whether we
happen to label it "past subjunctive" is a problem for morphology as
well -- I think it's doubtful that there exists a productive morphological
form called "past subjunctive" in English (when there's only one item
in the entire language which is marked for a particular form, it gets
a bit tricky to justify this form as a global productive entity).
Syntactically, the notion "past subjunctive" might well occur at some
level (and it by and large gets rendered as an infinitive or modal
construction or whatever). But at the end of the day, the form "if
I were" is fairly common. Fine. No problem.
> In English (unlike, for example, French), the verb "be" -- in all
> tenses and moods -- does not take a direct object; rather, it is what
> is known as a "copula" and takes a predicate nominative. This is why
> we say "This is she" when we answer the phone. It is also why Standard
> English has "If I were she" rather than "*If I were her".
>
> To be fair, this rule has been lost in many, many dialects of colloquial
> English and is probably preserved only in the careful speech of educated
> speakers (some would say: affected pedants).
Well that's all very silly if you don't mind me saying. Firstly, what's
this thing about 'be' not taking a direct object? Who cares what
it "takes"? English doesn't have morphological case marking, so it could
be accusative or dative or monster-raving-lunitive or whatever and we'd
never know. How can you possibly ever in the world determine what case
it is?
The fact is that the form which people actually use is "her". There's
no reason why it shouldn't be that "her" is a form which is both
nominative *and* oblique (or accusative or monster-raving-lunitive
or whatever you fancy calling it -- perhaps "Fred" would sound nice).
Or maybe 'be' actually takes an accusative -- what actually is your
reason for saying that it doesn't? Or... what does it really
matter. At the end of the day, the form which people use is "her".
You say that "this rule has been lost". What has actually happened is
that English has lost its system of morphological case distinctions.
Therefore it's nonesensical to argue about what case a particular form
is.
> I try to speak this way; I imagine that Truly, Coby, Mark, Henry
> Churchyard, Polar, and other regulars here do as well.
But why bother? All it does is sound stupid to most native speakers.
> The second issue with the example in question is the use of the subjunctive
> "were". Although it, too, seems to be dying out in colloquial usage, it is
> completely alive and kicking in all educated usage:
Depends what you mean by alive and kicking. There's *one* verb in the
entire language which could possibly be said to have a morphologically
distinct past subjunctive form.
Neil
K1912
>In article <35189F...@ms22.hinet.net>, vertigo
><URL:mailto:ver...@ms22.hinet.net> wrote:
>
>> If I were she. Commuational (exchange) test: If I were she, I would,
>> etc. NOT If I were her, me would, etc.
>
>
>Neil Coffey wrote:
>No. Think descriptively: virtually nobody would actually say
>"if I were she", which is a blatant (and completely ridiculous-sounding)
>Latinism.
>
>
True, "virtually nobody would say 'if I were she'" in everday English
(colloquial English); but it isn't true that it's a "blatant (and completely
ridiculous-sounding) Latinism." It's standard English--and if one is using
Standard English one would both say and write "if I were she." "I" is in the
nominative case, and therefore requires the nominative "she." How can the
correct grammar of Standard English be construed as a "blatant (and completely
ridiculus-sounding) Latinism"?
K1912
Neil Coffey
In article <6fec2s$dlo$1...@news.cudenver.edu>,
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting <URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
> This is a novel theory; I've never heard religion brought into this
> before. Latin was also the language of science and of international
> political discourse. Latin, as the progenitor of many European
> languages, was seen as the pure form of languages that had degenerated,
> and as the language of a civilization that was viewed as the ideal
> was ascribed an elevated status.
I think the religion aspect is important -- it does probably go some way
to explaining why people were so obsessive about Latin as something
"sacred" rather than merely a "common scientific language".
Neil
P&DSchultz
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
>
> In article <ant25231...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
> <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>
> >> 1. If I were she ..... or
> >> 2. If I were her .....
> >
> >
> >> 3. I am taller than him. or
> >> 4. I am taller than he.
> >
> >3.
> >
> >Occasionally, people who mistakenly think that every language
> >models its grammar on Latin expect prescriptively that English will
> >use 1 and 4. But in actual usage this is hardly ever the case, and
> >most speakers will consider 1 and 4 to sound stupid.
>
> OK; I'm willing to follow the rules of English grammar rather than the rules of
> Latin. But what rule makes "2" grammatical? It must be something more complex
> than "if it follows the verb, it's in the objective case".
>
> And what could be the grammar of "than"?
>
> I am better than him. [?]
> I am better at it than him [?]
> I am better at playing cards, running the mile, and tying flies than ?
> I am better than he is.
>
> Part of the rule must be that if the pronoun following than is the subject of
> an explicitly stated verb, it goes in the nominative case. Is that all there
> is to it?
"Him is not in the objective case; it's in the post-verbal case.
"I'm better than him," because "him" follows the only verb ("am").
"I'm better than he is," because "he" is now in FRONT of its own verb.
//P. Schultz
Sean Holland
vertigo <ver...@ms22.hinet.net> wrote:
(snip)
>some people demonstrate more etiquette eating with their
> fingrs than others do holding their forks in their right (rather than
> their left) hand.
Holding their forks in their right hands? That would be the virtual
equivalent of eating with their fingers, or simply shoving their faces
into the food.
And don't fergit, kids: nothing but silver when eating fish. None of
this barbarous steel, ya hear now?
--
Sean
To e-mail me, take out the garbage.
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>>Neil Coffey wrote:
>
>> ... a blatant (and completely ridiculous-sounding) Latinism.
A new recruit to the ranks of prescriptivism, eh?
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Neil Coffey
In article <6fds8c$3s8$1...@news.cudenver.edu>,
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting <URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
> But what rule makes "2" grammatical?
Simple: it's what native speakers say.
> And what could be the grammar of "than"?
>
> I am better than him. [?]
> I am better at it than him [?]
Why the question marks? Both these forms occur frequently in the speech
of educated native speakers.
> I am better at playing cards, running the mile, and tying flies than ?
than him / than he is / than he (in formal usage of some speakers)
> Part of the rule must be that if the pronoun following than is the
> subject of an explicitly stated verb, it goes in the nominative case.
But why get into this business of nominative case? The form "he"
often occurs in subject position before a verb; in other positions, the
form is rare. What's so strange about it occurring before the verb "is"
in "I am better than he is"?
Neil
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>"Him is not in the objective case; it's in the post-verbal case.
>"I'm better than him," because "him" follows the only verb ("am").
>"I'm better than he is," because "he" is now in FRONT of its own verb.
You may be onto something; it's certainly a whole lot better than the argument
that English has no morphologically-marked case.
What about situations where a copula precedes a relative clause. Most people
would probably say "He is the one who will..." rather than "It is he who
will..."; but I think those "most people" would accept the latter as
grammatical and "It is him who will..." as ungrammatical. Not refuting your
posited "post-verbal" case; just suggesting that the rule may need additional
refinement.
At a meeting of a three or four accountants who have no particular interest in
usage, I asked how they respond to the telephonic inquiry "Is X there?"
Except for the one who weasels out of the issue by responding "This is X", all
said that they respond "This is (s)he," as do I. Do we need to modify the rule
somehow to account for this post-verbal usage of the pre-verbal case.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <ant27152...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
<neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>In article <6fds8c$3s8$1...@news.cudenver.edu>,
>Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
<URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
>
>> But what rule makes "2" grammatical?
>
>Simple: it's what native speakers say.
This rule will be a great help to non-native speakers trying to learn the
language.
Seems to me that even if you object to prescriptivist rules that say "this is
how it must be done, or we will cast you from the ranks of those whose use of
language we respect", a descriptivist rule that in as few words as possible
accurately predicts as many as possible of the actual usages would be both
intellectually satisfying and useful.
P&D Schultz's rule, stated elsewhere, that English has a pre-verbal and a
post-verbal case seems to me like a start.
>> And what could be the grammar of "than"?
>>
>> I am better than him. [?]
>> I am better at it than him [?]
>
>Why the question marks? Both these forms occur frequently in the speech
>of educated native speakers.
The question mark was intended to indicate that I was not certain what educated
native speakers would say.
>> I am better at playing cards, running the mile, and tying flies than ?
>
>than him / than he is / than he (in formal usage of some speakers)
>> Part of the rule must be that if the pronoun following than is the
>> subject of an explicitly stated verb, it goes in the nominative case.
>But why get into this business of nominative case?
Call it the pre-verbal case. Call it, as you suggested, Fred. The fact is,
there are different forms, and I would like to be able to know which will be
used according to the situation.
>The form "he" often occurs in subject position before a verb; in other
>positions, the form is rare.
Rare, but not non-existent. How can we account for these rare but grammatical
occurrences.
I'm not objecting to your throwing out a Latin grammar artificially applied to
English. But then someone should be publishing an English grammar.
>What's so strange about it occurring before the verb "is" in "I am better
than he is"?
It struck me as odd that the form following "than" would change according to
whether or not a verb (which adds nothing to the meaning) followed it. P&D
Schultz's proposal that there is are pre-verbal and post-verbal cases make it
seem less odd.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Neil Coffey
In article <199803262249...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, K1912
<URL:mailto:k1...@aol.com> wrote:
> True, "virtually nobody would say 'if I were she'" in everday English
> (colloquial English); but it isn't true that it's a "blatant (and completely
> ridiculous-sounding) Latinism." It's standard English--and if one is using
> Standard English one would both say and write "if I were she."
Well, I would argue that "if I were her" is standard English. It
really does sound ridiculous and pompous to the vast majority of native
speakers. In Great Britain at least, I fail to see any situation in which
one would naturally speak/write/sing "if I were her" without it seeming
strange to the vast vast vast majority of listeners. If you're going
to define "standard English" as being such a variety, is this a very
useful definition?
> "I" is in the nominative case, and therefore requires the
> nominative "she."
Firstly, what's the point in saying that '"I" is in the nominative
case'? English is a non-inflecting language. Secondly, why should
any word "require" to be in a particular case? And what is your
"therefore" in the above sentence?
> How can the correct grammar of Standard English be construed as
> a "blatant (and completely ridiculus-sounding) Latinism"?
Well, if you think that "if I were she" is Standard English, then
this is what you are implying.
Neil
James Martin
>And what could be the grammar of "than"?
In these cases, it's a conjunction.
>I am better than him. [?]
Should read: I am better he (is).
>I am better at it than him [?]
Same as above: I am better at it than he (is).
>I am better at playing cards, running the mile, and tying flies than ?
Same situation as above.
>I am better than he is.
Perfect.
>Part of the rule must be that if the pronoun following than is the subject of
>an explicitly stated verb, it goes in the nominative case. Is that all there
>is to it?
Seems to be. The LBHB offers two examples in its entry for as and than:
I love you more than he (loves you).
I love you as much as (I love) him.
To which we could add:
I love you as much as he (loves you).
>Gary Williams
james
P&DSchultz
I am not the one who made up this pre-verbal -- post-verbal stuff. I am
merely toying with it. In fact, there IS more to it; for example:
Base forms (I he she we they) are used
(1) before the verb (He is sick)
(2) in coordination (...with my husband and I)
(3) in apposition (That is for we the employees).
Oblique forms (me, him, her, us, them) are used elsewhere.
//P. Schultz
Neil Coffey
In article <6fghu2$fq5$1...@news.cudenver.edu>,
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting <URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
> >Simple: it's what native speakers say.
>
> This rule will be a great help to non-native speakers trying to learn the
> language.
The first answer to this would be, of course, "so what?". A given
utterance is grammatical if the majority of (educatied?) native speakers
consider it to be such. But, in answer to the problem that you raise, I
don't see that attempting to assign morphological case names to the form
explains the form any better than just stating what form is used.
> Seems to me that even if you object to prescriptivist rules that say "this is
> how it must be done, or we will cast you from the ranks of those whose use of
> language we respect", a descriptivist rule that in as few words as possible
> accurately predicts as many as possible of the actual usages would be both
> intellectually satisfying and useful.
I'm not even objecting to prescriptivist rules. All I'm objecting to
is the idea that people say "if I were she". To me this utterance
is not part of native English speaker usage. But maybe in America things
are different?
> >The form "he" often occurs in subject position before a verb; in other
> >positions, the form is rare.
>
> Rare, but not non-existent. How can we account for these rare but
> grammatical occurrences.
I think you're imagining a problem that doesn't exist. You seem to be
assuming that "than" for some reason should be followed by a particular
case. But why bother making this assumption? The fact is that "better
than me" is grammatical, as is "better than I am". In the former
case, 'than' governs one form; in the latter, the presence of the
inflectional ("verb") phrase governs (overridingly) another form. I
don't see why this is such a problem.
Neil
Neil Coffey
In article <6fgev6$jcb$5...@news.cudenver.edu>,
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting <URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
> At a meeting of a three or four accountants who have no particular interest in
> usage, I asked how they respond to the telephonic inquiry "Is X there?"
> Except for the one who weasels out of the issue by responding "This is X", all
> said that they respond "This is (s)he," as do I. Do we need to modify the rule
> somehow to account for this post-verbal usage of the pre-verbal case.
I think one of the problems may be a difference between American/British
usage? I'm pretty certain that in Britain "This is he/she" would sound
*extremely* stilted to virtually all speakers.
Neil
Neil Coffey
In article <ant27153...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
<URL:mailto:neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> speakers. In Great Britain at least, I fail to see any situation in which
> one would naturally speak/write/sing "if I were her" without it seeming
> strange to the vast vast vast majority of listeners.
Oops. Fatal mistake. This should, of course, have read: '...in which
one would naturally speak/write/sing "if I were she"'.
Must have been the wine talking...!!! ;-)
Neil
Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com
In article <ant26215...@debussy.demon.co.uk>,
Neil Coffey <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> In article <6fe6fk$ue2$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> <URL:mailto:Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com> wrote:
> l
> > This, in and of itself, does not contradict Neil's desire to "think
> > descriptively", since any prescriptive rule that is widely followed in
> > Standard English is also, ipso facto, a descriptive account of the usage of
> > Standard English.
>
> A priori, yes. But there's no way that you can argue that the "if
> I were she" syndrome falls into the category of "widely followed in
> Standard English". It simply isn't.
CALL FOR VOTES: Would all readers who might naturally use the expression "If
I were she", please vote YES in response to this posting. Also those who
would be able to hear this from a native speaker and not choke on their
doughnut. Those who would NOT use this construction need not reply, since my
sole claim is that there are plenty of people who DO use it; I have said
nothing about those who do not.
> You're making two big assumptions here, of course. Firstly, you're
> subsuming that there actually exists such a thing as the "past subjunctive"
> in English; secondly, you're assuming that the notion of "nominative"
> is a valid morphological phenomenon in English (notice I said morphological
> and not syntactical: syntactically, we can suppose that case is
> universal and that there exists a valid notion of nominative case
> in English).
Remember: I said in my posting that I am referring to "Standard English".
This is a prescriptive term, and the rules of Standard English -- like the
rules of Correct Driving, Proper Manners, and Seven-Card Gin -- are
prescriptive rules which stay how things oughta be, rather than descriptive
rules which generalize a given behavior on the basis of empirical
observation. Neil has argued that "If I were she" is a "stupid" Latinism.
"Stupid" is a value judgment which is not relevant to the subject. As for
"Latinism", "if I were she" may be precisely that. But like the "Frenchism"
which introduced the -our spelling of colour, flavour, favour, etc. (in favor
of the original Latin -or) or the Latinism which outlawed split infinitives,
it has become an inseperable part of the prescriptive rules which define
Standard English.
This is not to say that I reject Neil's "Think descriptively" approach. But
in the spirit of Koheleth (a.k.a. Ecclesiastes), there is a season for
descriptive rules and one for prescriptive rules. This thread, in my
opinion, clearly calls for the prescriptive rules of "Standard English",
since it comes in response to one of those "What is the right way to say"
postings.
According to the prescriptive rules of Standard English as they have been
taught for a very long time, there still is a form called "past tense,
subjunctive mood". (Incidentally, the fact that there is a rule which only
fires in a single case is not impossible even in the descriptive realm of
real language. Look at the famous case of "dark L" in Arabic, a bona fide
allophone in the /l/ phoneme, which exists in a SINGLE WORD. And there are
other such cases.)
> > In English (unlike, for example, French), the verb "be" -- in all
> > tenses and moods -- does not take a direct object; rather, it is what
> > is known as a "copula" and takes a predicate nominative. This is why
> > we say "This is she" when we answer the phone. It is also why Standard
> > English has "If I were she" rather than "*If I were her".
> >
> > To be fair, this rule has been lost in many, many dialects of colloquial
> > English and is probably preserved only in the careful speech of educated
> > speakers (some would say: affected pedants).
>
> Well that's all very silly if you don't mind me saying.
That would be "if you don't mind MY saying", and yes, I do. Disagree with me
all you like, but I find it rude in the extreme to resort to this sort of
name calling. But that's just me being prescriptive.
> Firstly, what's
> this thing about 'be' not taking a direct object? Who cares what
> it "takes"?
Apparently, many of those who post questions and responses regarding the
"correct" (from the prescriptive standpoint) use of Standard English.
> English doesn't have morphological case marking,
No, but it has a full set of case-sensitive personal pronouns.
> so it could
> be accusative or dative or monster-raving-lunitive or whatever and we'd
> never know. How can you possibly ever in the world determine what case
> it is?
If we're talking about personal pronouns, which we are, it's a closed set.
>
> The fact is that the form which people actually use is "her".
Except for those people who say "she". Watch this space.
> There's
> no reason why it shouldn't be that "her" is a form which is both
> nominative *and* oblique (or accusative or monster-raving-lunitive
> or whatever you fancy calling it -- perhaps "Fred" would sound nice).
> Or maybe 'be' actually takes an accusative -- what actually is your
> reason for saying that it doesn't? Or... what does it really
> matter. At the end of the day, the form which people use is "her".
Except for those who say "she". Watch this space. As for which model to use
in order to explain the forms he vs. him, she vs. her, I vs. me, we vs. us,
They vs. them, the descriptive adequacy of the model depends upon the context
in which it is used. In the context of comparative linguistics, or
contrastive analysis, or historical linguistics, for example, you would be
hard put to claim that there was no such thing as past subjunctive -- or as
nominative case -- in English.
>
> You say that "this rule has been lost". What has actually happened is
> that English has lost its system of morphological case distinctions.
> Therefore it's nonesensical to argue about what case a particular form
> is.
So how would you label the distinction between the respectively
fomerly-known-as-case forms of each personal pronoun?
>
> > I try to speak this way; I imagine that Truly, Coby, Mark, Henry
> > Churchyard, Polar, and other regulars here do as well.
>
> But why bother? All it does is sound stupid to most native speakers.
Except for those people who say "If I were she". Watch this space.
[Avi: Past subjunctive "were" is "alive and kicking".]
> Depends what you mean by alive and kicking. There's *one* verb in the
> entire language which could possibly be said to have a morphologically
> distinct past subjunctive form.
It was precisely the use of "were" to which I was referring.
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <ant27195...@debussy.demon.co.uk>,
Neil Coffey <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>I think you're imagining a problem that doesn't exist. You seem to be
>assuming that "than" for some reason should be followed by a particular
>case. But why bother making this assumption? The fact is that "better
>than me" is grammatical, as is "better than I am". In the former
>case, 'than' governs one form; in the latter, the presence of the
>inflectional ("verb") phrase governs (overridingly) another form. I
>don't see why this is such a problem.
No, that's fine, now that we have the rule.
I may have overreacted to your argument; and it's possible that you overstated
your case to refute a specific point. It just seemed to me that you were
saying "there are not rules". (I remember you saying "English has no case".)
I don't mind a debate over which, of two competing rules, is the rule actually
in use. I just don't believe that the distribution of the various pronoun
forms is random; so there must be rules that govern this distribution.
Probably you never said there weren't; it just seemed to me as if that's what
you were saying..
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Aaron J. Dinkin
> In article <351AE7...@erols.com>, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> writes:
>
> >"Him is not in the objective case; it's in the post-verbal case.
> >"I'm better than him," because "him" follows the only verb ("am").
> >"I'm better than he is," because "he" is now in FRONT of its own verb.
>
> You may be onto something; it's certainly a whole lot better than the
> argument that English has no morphologically-marked case.
Or you could argue that in the first sentence "than" is a preposition and
in the second sentence it's a conjunction. Thus "him" is an object and
therefore accusative, and "he" is a subject and therefore nominative.
> At a meeting of a three or four accountants who have no particular interest
> in usage, I asked how they respond to the telephonic inquiry "Is X there?"
> Except for the one who weasels out of the issue by responding "This is X",
> all said that they respond "This is (s)he," as do I. Do we need to modify
> the rule somehow to account for this post-verbal usage of the pre-verbal
> case.
I think "This is she" is really more hypercorrection than anything else:
people have been told that "This is her" is wrong and "This is she" is
right, so they use the latter even though it really isn't (leastwise, I
always think it sounds funny). Personally, I say "That's me."
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I am not the one who made up this pre-verbal -- post-verbal stuff. I am
> merely toying with it. In fact, there IS more to it; for example:
>
> Base forms (I he she we they) are used
> (1) before the verb (He is sick)
> (2) in coordination (...with my husband and I)
> (3) in apposition (That is for we the employees).
>
> Oblique forms (me, him, her, us, them) are used elsewhere.
But the thing is, I'm almost certain (2) and (3) are hypercorrections.
First- and second-graders would say "my husband and me" and "us employees"
(inappropriate examples, I guess) for both subjects and objects. Their
teachers tell them, on hearing "me" and "us" in a subject, that they must
use "I" and "we", and the children assume that the "standard" rule is to
use "I" and "we" in coordination: all they notice it that whenever they say
"my husband and me" the teacher tells them to say "my husband and I".
Natural standard English uses the accusative in apposition and
coordination.
Aaron J. Dinkin
> In article <6fghu2$fq5$1...@news.cudenver.edu>,
> Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
<URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
>
> > >Simple: it's what native speakers say.
> >
> > This rule will be a great help to non-native speakers trying to learn the
> > language.
>
> The first answer to this would be, of course, "so what?". A given
> utterance is grammatical if the majority of (educatied?) native speakers
> consider it to be such. But, in answer to the problem that you raise, I
> don't see that attempting to assign morphological case names to the form
> explains the form any better than just stating what form is used.
So you can say, for example, "'Be' is followed by the accusative" rather
than having to say "'Be' may be followed by the personal pronouns 'me',
'you', 'him', 'her', 'it', 'us', or 'them'." That is, so it's possible to
make a general statement.
> I'm not even objecting to prescriptivist rules. All I'm objecting to
> is the idea that people say "if I were she". To me this utterance
> is not part of native English speaker usage. But maybe in America things
> are different?
No, I agree with you, at least in my case. I've heard it used, but it
sounds horribly stilted.
Robert Lipton
>CALL FOR VOTES: Would all readers who might naturally use the expression "If
>I were she", please vote YES in response to this posting. Also those who
>would be able to hear this from a native speaker and not choke on their
>doughnut. Those who would NOT use this construction need not reply, since my
>sole claim is that there are plenty of people who DO use it; I have said
>nothing about those who do not.
I might use it. As for choking on doughnut on hearing it, it all depends
on the quality of doughnut, does it not? If I were to hear the phrase
while eating a Krispy Kreme Donut...
Bob
Neil Coffey
In article <6fhhdf$ts8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
<URL:mailto:Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com> wrote:
> CALL FOR VOTES: Would all readers who might naturally use the expression "If
> I were she", please vote YES in response to this posting. Also those who
> would be able to hear this from a native speaker and not choke on their
> doughnut. Those who would NOT use this construction need not reply, since my
> sole claim is that there are plenty of people who DO use it; I have said
> nothing about those who do not.
If you only get YES votes, then how can you determine anything
useful about the usage of this construction?
And in any case, people often speak differently from the way they
think they speak.
What would be more interesting would be to analyse a few radio
interviews and count the number of instances of each pronoun type
as complement of 'be' by those taking part.
Neil
--
Neil Coffey e-mail: neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk
St Anne's College UNIX talk: gro...@coffey.stannes.ox.ac.uk
Oxford World Wide Web: http://ox.compsoc.net/~neil/
OX2 6HS (See my French-English dictionary)
Neil Coffey
In article <6fhhdf$ts8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
<URL:mailto:Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com> wrote:
> Remember: I said in my posting that I am referring to "Standard English".
> This is a prescriptive term, and the rules of Standard English -- like the
> rules of Correct Driving, Proper Manners, and Seven-Card Gin -- are
> prescriptive rules which stay how things oughta be
Well, are they? Standard English is a non-regional, non-popular
variety of English. I'm not sure that "how thing oughta be" really comes
into it very much. I like to think that we've got beyond a way
of thinking which accounts for language in such terms.
> observation. Neil has argued that "If I were she" is a "stupid" Latinism.
> "Stupid" is a value judgment which is not relevant to the subject.
Well, it is relevant because it is the reaction which (in my opinion)
most native speakers, in Great Britian at least, would have to this
construction.
> But like the "Frenchism" which introduced the -our spelling of colour,
> flavour, favour, etc. (in favor of the original Latin -or) or the
> Latinism which outlawed split infinitives,
I don't think you can compare prescriptive language rules with
spelling system rules. The spelling system is a completely invented
entity, whereas the language is something which evolves.
As for the Latinism which outlawed split infinitives: split infinitives
are perfectly common in textbooks, national news broadcasts -- i.e. in
what it is useful to consider Standard English.
I think the split infinitive thing is particularly ironic, and a good
example of a rule made up because linguistis mis-understood the
way that syntax works. Latin didn't have inflectional or determiner
phrases, therefore there was no possibility of a word like 'to'. Now
that Romance languages have inflectional phrases, we find, lo and
behold, that such words do exist. For example, French "to watch" >
'de regarder'. And, surprise surprise, these infinitives can be split:
French "to watch closely" > 'de bien regarder'.
> That would be "if you don't mind MY saying"
Another example of silly twaddle-based rules. Syntactically, case can
be assigned by the verb 'mind' in this construction just as easily
as it can by anything else.
> Apparently, many of those who post questions and responses regarding the
> "correct" (from the prescriptive standpoint) use of Standard English.
They might want to know about Standard English, but how do you know
they want you to be prescriptive?
> In the context of comparative linguistics, or
> contrastive analysis, or historical linguistics, for example, you would be
> hard put to claim that there was no such thing as past subjunctive -- or as
> nominative case -- in English.
Indeed, if we were studying Old English. But the fact is that we're
not. The historical state of the language has nothing whatsoever to
do with it. What matters is the state of the language here and now.
> > You say that "this rule has been lost". What has actually happened is
> > that English has lost its system of morphological case distinctions.
> > Therefore it's nonesensical to argue about what case a particular form
> > is.
>
> So how would you label the distinction between the respectively
> fomerly-known-as-case forms of each personal pronoun?
Who cares? For what it's worth, the term "disjunctive pronoun" is
sometimes used. But what matters is observing actual usage. You
might then make a statement like: "occasionally, the subject
pronouns are used as the complement of 'be'".
Just out of interest. Would those people who say "if I were she"
say:
(a) if I became she?
or:
(b) if I became her?
> > But why bother? All it does is sound stupid to most native speakers.
>
> Except for those people who say "If I were she". Watch this space.
Another problem, more of a problem with English than a lot of
other languages, is determining what people say naturally and what
they say "because they think they should". The latter constitutes
fairly noisy data in attempting to describe usage.
In summary, then, I think a lot of the problem lies in conflicting
views about what constitutes "Standard English". My view is that
language which is considered suitable for textbooks and national
news broadcasts must usually be considered part of this standard
variety. If not, then what is the purpose of the notion "Standard
English"?
Neil Coffey
In article <6fhbgr$7cb$2...@news.cudenver.edu>,
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting <URL:mailto:will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU> wrote:
> It just seemed to me that you were
> saying "there are not rules". (I remember you saying "English has
> no case".) I don't mind a debate over which, of two competing rules,
> is the rule actually in use. I just don't believe that the
> distribution of the various pronoun forms is random; so there must be
> rules that govern this distribution.
Of course there must be rules -- as you say, distribution is clearly
not random. But people often forget what exactly the "rules" are.
The rules exist as internalised procedures (?) within the brain.
We cannot state or examine these rules, and instead must make
an estimate as to what they might be based on usage. Several posters
on this thread seem to have taken the approach that there are
somehow set-in-stone laws which people somehow follow when speaking.
What I think then is:
(1) If we're going to state the prescriptive rules which various
linguists have in the past come up with, then that's fine so long
as we state clearly that this is what we are doing.
(2) We can be much more critical in our examination of such rules
than many people have been -- I think it's important to consider
the extent to which any rule accounts for actual usage.
(3) We need to be more wary about words like "correct", "incorrect"
if we're going to understand the way in which languages operate.
Neil
Aaron J. Dinkin
In article <ant28112...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
<neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> Of course there must be rules -- as you say, distribution is clearly
> not random. But people often forget what exactly the "rules" are.
> The rules exist as internalised procedures (?) within the brain.
> We cannot state or examine these rules, and instead must make
> an estimate as to what they might be based on usage. Several posters
> on this thread seem to have taken the approach that there are
> somehow set-in-stone laws which people somehow follow when speaking.
But, as you've just said, there _are_ such laws - internalized within the
brain, yes, but laws nonetheless. I don't see how you can describe usage
without describing the rules along which usage seems to be organized. It
would be like trying to describe physics without describing physical laws
since, after all, we cannot observe the laws themselves but only their
effects: "When I dropped an apple, it fell. When I dropped a cannonball off
the Tower of Pisa, it fell. When I dropped my shoe, it fell."
Neil Coffey
In article <adinkin-ya0231800...@news.nii.net>, Aaron J. Dinkin
<URL:mailto:adi...@commschool.org> wrote:
> But, as you've just said, there _are_ such laws - internalized within the
> brain, yes, but laws nonetheless. I don't see how you can describe usage
> without describing the rules along which usage seems to be organized.
Of course. And that's exactly what we are trying to do -- describe usage.
The problem comes when people just make up some arbitrary rule (e.g.
"'be' takes the nominative") and then expect people's usage to magically
conform to this.
Neil
Neil Coffey
In article <35231da7...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
<URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> But what *kind* of radio interviews?
I don't see that this is a problem. There are plenty of discussion
programmes, chat shows etc.
> You get the idea... how would those be indicative?
They'd give you an indication of actual usage. If you wanted
to differentiate between different speakers (e.g. Government
ministers, sports personalities, actors, interviewers, whatever)
then this is also feasible.
The problem is that it would take a huge amount of time and
would probably only confirm general observation, provided we
are honest with ourselves about what the general observation is
and don't get carried away by what we'd *like* the observation
to be.
Neil
Aaron J. Dinkin
In article <ant29082...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
<neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
But what's happening is that people are not _demanding_ that "be" take the
nominative; rather, they're _observing_ that "be" takes the nominative, in
their own dialects and those of some of their accquaintances. It may not in
yours or mine, but it's no different than noting that for you and me, "be"
takes the accusative. They don't "expect people's usage to magically
conform to it"; aren't you making a similar expectation?
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>CALL FOR VOTES: Would all readers who might naturally use the expression "If
>I were she", please vote YES in response to this posting. Also those who
>would be able to hear this from a native speaker and not choke on their
>doughnut.
I am not absolutely certain what I would do in speaking; probably I would come
out with "If I were her", but it's hard to test. I am almost certain that I
would write "If I were she." I would certainly not choke, and would probably
barely notice anything unusual, if I heard "If I were she". I would understand
and possibly tolerate someone else's use of "If I were her" in writing, but it
would create a negative impression of their care in writing.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <adinkin-ya0231800...@news.nii.net>,
>In article <351C22...@erols.com>, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>> I am not the one who made up this pre-verbal -- post-verbal stuff. I am
>> merely toying with it. In fact, there IS more to it; for example:
>>
>> Base forms (I he she we they) are used
>> (1) before the verb (He is sick)
>> (2) in coordination (...with my husband and I)
>> (3) in apposition (That is for we the employees).
>>
>> Oblique forms (me, him, her, us, them) are used elsewhere.
>But the thing is, I'm almost certain (2) and (3) are hypercorrections. ...
>Natural standard English uses the accusative in apposition and
>coordination.
I agree with you, but think the real grammar rule being hypercorrected for here
is that English uses the accusative following a preposition. Even
"whom" is alive, if not altogether well, in that context.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Sean Holland
<Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com> wrote:
> CALL FOR VOTES: Would all readers who might naturally use the expression "If
> I were she", please vote YES in response to this posting. Also those who
> would be able to hear this from a native speaker and not choke on their
> doughnut. Those who would NOT use this construction need not reply, since my
> sole claim is that there are plenty of people who DO use it; I have said
> nothing about those who do not.
>
No. Yes, I would choke on the doughnut. And no, I don't care that you
are not interested in my vote.
--
Sean
To e-mail me, take out the garbage.
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <6flvr6$nss$3...@news.cudenver.edu>, will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU
(Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting) writes:
In the piece below, I should have put "being hypercorrected against" rather
than "for".
Neil Coffey
In article <adinkin-ya0231800...@news.nii.net>, Aaron J. Dinkin
<URL:mailto:adi...@commschool.org> wrote:
> But what's happening is that people are not _demanding_ that "be" take the
> nominative; rather, they're _observing_ that "be" takes the nominative, in
> their own dialects and those of some of their accquaintances.
If that's purely what they're doing, then fine. But there have been
several posts to this thread in the vain of "the correct answer is 'she'
because 'be' takes the nominative". It really is important that we
are more sensible than this about the way we tackle language if we
are to make any kind of progress. It's bad enough that there are
still so many textbooks around with this kind of mentality without
allowing it to cloud our discussions as well.
Neil
The Chocolate Lady
On Fri, 27 Mar 1998 18:51:37 -0600 during the alt.usage.english
Community News Flash, Avi.Ja...@pbdir.com reported:
>CALL FOR VOTES: Would all readers who might naturally use the expression "If
>I were she", please vote YES in response to this posting. Also those who
>would be able to hear this from a native speaker and not choke on their
>doughnut. Those who would NOT use this construction need not reply, since my
>sole claim is that there are plenty of people who DO use it; I have said
>nothing about those who do not.
I would not use the expression 'naturally', but I would certainly not
have a problem hearing a native speaker use it.
(And I only eat "donuts" once a year, and they make me choke no matter
what language I'm listening to.)
The Chocolate Lady
Davida Chazan
~*~*~*~*~*~
De chocolatei non est disputandum! Ergo, carpe chocolatum!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Support the Jayne Hitchcock HELP Fund:
http://www.geocities.com/~hitchcockc/story.html#fund
Rhialto
personally, I prefer If I were that person over there :)
ok ok ok, 'she' then.
M. Ranjit Mathews
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
> In article <adinkin-ya0231800...@news.nii.net>,
> adi...@commschool.org (Aaron J. Dinkin) writes:
>
> >In article <351C22...@erols.com>, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I am not the one who made up this pre-verbal -- post-verbal stuff. I am
> >> merely toying with it. In fact, there IS more to it; for example:
> >>
> >> Base forms (I he she we they) are used
> >> (1) before the verb (He is sick)
> >> (2) in coordination (...with my husband and I)
shouldn't this be "me" since what's after "with" is always in object form ?
P&DSchultz
M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
> > >> Base forms (I he she we they) are used
> > >> (1) before the verb (He is sick)
> > >> (2) in coordination (...with my husband and I)
>
> shouldn't this be "me" since what's after "with" is always in object form ?
In formal English, yes. But this was a list of the supposed real,
actual rules as applied from the genuine grammar in the brains of
modern native speakers, as opposed to the formalized rules of some
artificial, contrived grammar written down in books.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
Neil Coffey wrote:
>
> In article <35217287...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
> <URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > Ranjit, PLEASE disregard the above! You can never, never, never, use
> > a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
> > suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
>
> That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
> "to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
> but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
No, no. Polar is right. Ranjit should keep his nose in the Rule Book
and pay no attention to the real English language as it parades past
him.
//P. Schultz
Neil Coffey
> Ranjit, PLEASE disregard the above! You can never, never, never, use
> a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
> suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
"to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
Neil
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>> That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
>> "to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
>> but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
>
>No, no. Polar is right. Ranjit should keep his nose in the Rule Book
>and pay no attention to the real English language as it parades past
>him.
But I'd suggest that people who reject artificial usages and constructs that
were imposed by Ms. Thistlebottom should be at least as ready to reject
artificial usages and constructs that are merely unsuccessful attempts to
comply with a misunderstanding of the rules that Ms. Thistlebottom was trying
to impose.
Just about the only place that the accusative/oblique/objective case lives a
reasonably healthy life in English-at-it-is-spoken is following a preposition.
So "with my husband and I" seems inappropriate whichever approach to English
usage one takes.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Skitt
Polar wrote in message <35217287...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 17:40:38 -0500, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
>wrote:
>Ranjit, PLEASE disregard the above! You can never, never, never, use
>a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
>suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
>Polar
I strongly agree with Polar. The "... with my husband and I" is
sickening.
--
Skitt http://webpages.metrolink.net/~skitt
mirror: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/5537/
vertigo
Neil Coffey wrote:
>
> In article <35217287...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
> <URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
> > suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
That's known as a hyperurbanism; since many people don't know when to
use "I" in uncertain locutions they tend to use "I" in all doubtful
constructions. Of course, lyricists conveniently choose objective or
subjective cases depending on their rhyming needs! Another
hyperurbanism is "irregardless" (i.e. "irrespective" + "regardless").
--
************************************************
"They are not long, the days of wine and roses."
Ernest Dowson, VITAE SUMMA BREVIS
************************************************
Neil Coffey
In article <35335f4f...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
<URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
> >"to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
> >but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
>
> That has to be one of the more meaningless comments ever posted on
> this (always meaningful) NG.
>
> Lots of things are said by (very common) people. But that doesn't
> make them correct, hyper or hypo.
But what gives us the power to dictate what's "correct"? My posting
is perfectly valid: speakers say "with my husband and I", and other
speakers view this as a hypercorrection. So be it. That's just the way
things are. I don't see what's so controversial about this.
Neil
P&DSchultz
Polar wrote:
>
> On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 22:48:03 -0500, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Neil Coffey wrote:
> >>
> >> <URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Ranjit, PLEASE disregard the above! You can never, never, never, use
> >> > a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
> >> > suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
> >>
> >> "to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
> >> but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
> >
> >and pay no attention to the real English language as it parades past
> >him.
>
>
> Is Mr. "tin ear" Schultz actually suggesting that "...between you and
> I..." is acceptable?
>
> No, it must be a tug I feel on my jambe. At least so I hope....
I really thought I had explained this. I was attempting to intuit rules
from the language as it is used. Native speakers say "between you and
I." LOTS and LOTS of native speakers say that. The people whose
ancestors made English what it is today say that. The OWNERS of the
LANGUAGE say that. I was trying to figure out the rules they use,
inside their heads, which result in "between you and I." Personally, I
don't say that, and I don't write that. But I have some very dear,
intelligent, witty, informed, interesting friends who DO say it, and I
ACCEPT it when they use it in relaxed conversation out on the deck next
to the grilling chicken and the chardonnay. So, to that extent, yes, I
consider it acceptable.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
> ...
> But I'd suggest that people who reject artificial usages and constructs that
> were imposed by Ms. Thistlebottom should be at least as ready to reject
> artificial usages and constructs that are merely unsuccessful attempts to
> comply with a misunderstanding of the rules that Ms. Thistlebottom was trying
> to impose...
If people continue to say "between you and I" for a long time (which
seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because of a
hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It is
VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating it,
and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the educated
grown-ups they know talk.
//P. Schultz
Robert Lieblich
Looks like a good time for the quarterly posting -- Lieblich's Law:
Good usage is a mistake that everybody makes.
I've heard "between you and I" so often of late that I've stopped
wincing at it. I don't use it myself, and I still edit it out of any
prose over which I have editing privileges. But I sense that "between
you and I" is following in the tracks of "It's me." Twenty years from
now, only a few old farts like me will even remember that there was once
a problem.
Do I like this? No. But surprisingly few users of the language care
what I like.
Bob Lieblich
M. Ranjit Mathews
P&DSchultz wrote:
> Neil Coffey wrote:
> >
> > In article <35217287...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
> > <URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Ranjit, PLEASE disregard the above! You can never, never, never, use
> > > a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
> > > suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
> >
> > That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
> > "to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
> > but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
I haven't heard this usage much. I have, however, found "me" quite commonly
used in place of "I" as in "he is taller than me" rather than "he is taller
than I (am tall)".
A secretary who had been an English major once told me, " You know English
better than me". I said, "Well, I've known English a lot longer". It took her
a few minutes to laugh.
Another usage that I haven't got used to is "me neither".
> No, no. Polar is right. Ranjit should keep his nose in the Rule Book
> and pay no attention to the real English language as it parades past
> him.
> //P. Schultz
Lloyd Zusman
s.m...@ix.netcom.com (Polar) writes:
> On Wed, 1 Apr 1998 22:12:41 +0000, Neil Coffey
> <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> >In article <35335f4f...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
> ><URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> >> >That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
> >> >"to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
> >> >but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
> >>
> >> That has to be one of the more meaningless comments ever posted on
> >> this (always meaningful) NG.
> >>
> >> Lots of things are said by (very common) people. But that doesn't
> >> make them correct, hyper or hypo.
> >
> >But what gives us the power to dictate what's "correct"? My posting
> >is perfectly valid: speakers say "with my husband and I", and other
> >speakers view this as a hypercorrection. So be it. That's just the way
> >things are. I don't see what's so controversial about this.
>
> What always amazes me about the "...with my husband and I" crowd, is
> that they never realize they are changing the rules just because
> there's a plural indirect object.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree with everything you have said here, except one point: I don't
believe that the object of the English preposition "with" is an
indirect object. I know that the object of the German preposition
"mit" must be in the dative case, but that doesn't really apply here
.. or does it?
> [ ... etc. ... ]
--
Lloyd Zusman
l...@asfast.com
P&DSchultz
Polar wrote:
> >P&DSchultz wrote:
> [...]
> >> If people continue to say "between you and I" for a long time (which
> >> seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because of a
> >> hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It is
> >> VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating it,
> >> and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the educated
> >> grown-ups they know talk.
>
> [...]
>
> "Educated people?" "Educated people???!!!!" "EDUCATED PEOPLE?"
>
> To resuscitate one of our favorite buzzwords back at the University of
> Chicago (oh, what smart asses we were!):
>
> "Define your terms!"
People with an education. Curious, informed people. People who read
and understand the day's news, and have interesting things to say
about it. People with large vocabularies. Mathematicians,
psychiatrists, people with masters degrees. They say "between you
and I." They probably wouldn't write it, but they're not particularly
fussy about prescriptive grammar when they're talking among friends,
and they say it. And if and when they realize it isn't formal
written-type English, they don't care. That's not their point.
I'm surprised you find this remarkable.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
Polar wrote:
> ...
> You ask them: "Would you say "...with I?" and they quickly reply: "Of
> course not! It's "...with ME." Then you ask them why they change "me"
> to "I" when there are two or more persons involved. You get a long
> silence and a furrowed brow in 98.34456069% of the cases....
If the people you hang out with put up with that kind of supercilious
abuse more than once, they are probably the type of people whose brows
are furrowed permanently. Do you TRY to have friends like that?
//P. Schultz
Richard M. Alderson III
Of course I use the subjunctive form, quite unselfconsciously, but I don't go
around correcting those who don't. Then again, I'm a linguist...
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_
Donna Richoux
Neil Coffey <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> But what gives us the power to dictate what's "correct"? My posting
> is perfectly valid: speakers say "with my husband and I", and other
> speakers view this as a hypercorrection. So be it. That's just the way
> things are. I don't see what's so controversial about this.
That is a neat summary of the descriptivist/prescriptivist debate. The
descriptivist says, "That's the way it is," and the prescriptivist adds,
"...and I don't like it."
Nobody is *given* the power to declare they don't like something, that
is assumed to be an inalienable *right.* Fortunately, as your question
says, neither is anyone given the power to be Dictator of English,
except in very limited circumstances (grading papers, editing articles,
etc.)
I admit, the prescriptivists confuse the matter by their choice of
words; terms like "correct" and "proper" and so on suggest that their
opinions have widespread and well-founded social agreement. Maybe they
do and maybe they don't.
I tend toward your camp, myself, feeling I have learned a lot more about
the world by keeping an open mind rather than pronouncing judgement all
the time. But neither do I condemn the prescriptivists; I suspect that
by voicing their opinions, they are maintaining the boundaries of some
sort of "standard English," and I reserve the right to become one myself
someday.
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Robert Lipton
1F6EC2....@austin.ibm.com> <352170...@erols.com> <35217287...@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <ant01000...@debussy.demon.co.uk> <35335f4f...@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <ant01224...@debussy.demon.co.uk> <3529188c...@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <352
32744...@erols.com>
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy
Followup-To:
I would think that the net result is that Polar hangs out with people who
use a construction like "between you and I" less (1). She doesn't hear
them abusing the language of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible. They
don't hear her correcting therir awful grammar which, along with their
philosophy and underwear, probably hasn't been changed or examined in a
couple of decades. Everyone wins.
Bob
(1)Which is as the buzzing of flies on rotting meat
Neil Coffey
In article <luiuos4...@asfast.com>, Lloyd Zusman
<URL:mailto:l...@asfast.com> wrote:
> > What always amazes me about the "...with my husband and I" crowd, is
> > that they never realize they are changing the rules just because
> > there's a plural indirect object.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I agree with everything you have said here, except one point: I don't
> believe that the object of the English preposition "with" is an
> indirect object.
It depends how you define "indirect object". Some people define it
in such a way as to include (complements of?) phrases such as "on the
table". It depends on what's most useful in the context you're
dealing with.
Neil
Skitt
P&DSchultz wrote in message <3521B8...@erols.com>...
>Neil Coffey wrote:
>>
>> In article <35217287...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
>> <URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Ranjit, PLEASE disregard the above! You can never, never, never,
use
>> > a subject for an object, as in your example. It MUST be, as you
>> > suggest, "...in coordination with my husband and ME."
>>
>> That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
>> "to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a
hypercorrection;
>> but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
>
>No, no. Polar is right. Ranjit should keep his nose in the Rule Book
>and pay no attention to the real English language as it parades past
>him.
>//P. Schultz
All I can say is that P. Schultz is not OK with I.
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Thu, 02 Apr 1998 00:51:00 -0500, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
wrote:
>Polar wrote:
>> ...
>> You ask them: "Would you say "...with I?" and they quickly reply: "Of
>> course not! It's "...with ME." Then you ask them why they change "me"
>> to "I" when there are two or more persons involved. You get a long
>> silence and a furrowed brow in 98.34456069% of the cases....
>
>If the people you hang out with put up with that kind of supercilious
>abuse more than once, they are probably the type of people whose brows
>are furrowed permanently. Do you TRY to have friends like that?
Does everyone have this same insecurity and recalcitrance?
Lawrence J. Krakauer
I don't find it remarkable, but I still have the immediate reaction
that the speaker sounds uneducated, and pompous to boot.
And the part that I find the most irritating is indeed the
impression that they don't care.
Interviewing two job seekers, I would take off some points for
anyone who said "between you and I", based on a probability that
other things they do might be sloppy as well.
--
Larry Krakauer (lar...@kronos.com)
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>If people continue to say "between you and I" for a long time (which
>seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because of a
>hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It is
>VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating it,
>and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the educated
>grown-ups they know talk.
No fundamental argument with you on your main point. It will be ironic that
when historians of the language try to account for this unique aspect of
English grammar--that the post-verbal case is used pre-verbally after a
preposition, but only when it is the second part of a compound prepositional
object--they will find that it developed because of the efforts of Ms.
Thistlebottom to impart quite a different lesson.
I wonder if there are documented examples of hypercorrection becoming the norm
in this or other languages.
My only quibble is with "educated grown-ups". Nor very well educated, I would
harrumph, at least not in English nor in logic.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU.
John Davies
In article <ant01224...@debussy.demon.co.uk>, Neil Coffey
<neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes
>In article <35335f4f...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Polar
><URL:mailto:s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> >That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
>> >"to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a hypercorrection;
>> >but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
>>
>> this (always meaningful) NG.
>>
>> Lots of things are said by (very common) people. But that doesn't
>> make them correct, hyper or hypo.
>
>is perfectly valid: speakers say "with my husband and I", and other
>speakers view this as a hypercorrection. So be it. That's just the way
>things are. I don't see what's so controversial about this.
The point is, some people have jobs which require them to choose between
competing usages, or to advise others on such choices: teachers of
English, editors, translators, and writers of every kind. It is not
much help to such people, or their clients, simply to tell them "some
people say this, and others say that". All kinds of factors may be
taken into account when making the choice, but a simple statistical
analysis of how many people say one thing and how many another is not
what most serious professionals would rely on.
You are of course entirely at liberty to limit your linguistic studies
to what people actually say or write, without venturing into the
difficult area of recommending what they *should* say or write. But if
you do, you must expect others, especially those who cannot afford the
luxury of being agnostic about such matters, to express frustration from
time to time with the limited scope of your contribution to usage
discussions.
Might I ask which of the usages in question you use yourself? Are you
consistent, or do you alternate between them? If the former, what
factors inform your choice? And which of the two forms is one most
likely to hear in the senior common room at St Anne's?
--
John Davies (jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk)
Neil Coffey
In article <H9GT7JAV...@redwoods.demon.co.uk>, John Davies
<URL:mailto:jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> You are of course entirely at liberty to limit your linguistic studies
> to what people actually say or write, without venturing into the
> difficult area of recommending what they *should* say or write. But if
> you do, you must expect others, especially those who cannot afford the
> luxury of being agnostic about such matters, to express frustration from
> time to time with the limited scope of your contribution to usage
> discussions.
Well, in that case, we make our observations more useful to these
people. We can say, for example, that many educated speakers prefer
to avoid the form "with my husband and I" in careful speech and
writing.
But notice I didn't use the word "should".
Neil
John M. Lawler
John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Neil Coffey <neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>>somebody else wrote:
>>> Lots of things are said by (very common) people. But that doesn't
>>> make them correct, hyper or hypo.
>>But what gives us the power to dictate what's "correct"? My posting
>>is perfectly valid: speakers say "with my husband and I", and other
>>speakers view this as a hypercorrection. So be it. That's just the way
>>things are. I don't see what's so controversial about this.
>The point is, some people have jobs which require them to choose between
>competing usages, or to advise others on such choices: teachers of
>English, editors, translators, and writers of every kind.
No one should be (in my opinion, no one *can* be) a teacher of English
without understanding how English works. Anyone stuck with that kind of
job without that kind of understanding is doomed to much more frustration
than life makes necessary. Editors, translators, and writers can often
proceed competently without it, though (again, in my opinion, and
experience) it helps a lot.
>It is not
>much help to such people, or their clients, simply to tell them "some
>people say this, and others say that".
One may or may not want to help those people, or their clients, after
all. What are they willing to pay to maintain their ignorance?
>All kinds of factors may be
>taken into account when making the choice, but a simple statistical
>analysis of how many people say one thing and how many another is not
>what most serious professionals would rely on.
Actually, it's much more useful than you may think. I recently completed
a project involving surveying progress in computational linguistics (see
.sig), and to my astonishment, I learned that it is possible to extract
around 90% of the useful meaning of natural language text (exact measures
are available) using only statistical (though not *simple* statistical --
the key word is Hidden Markov Model) analyses, without bringing syntax
into the question at all.
>You are of course entirely at liberty to limit your linguistic studies
>to what people actually say or write, without venturing into the
>difficult area of recommending what they *should* say or write.
Since I am a professional linguist, this is of course the limit of *my*
linguistic studies. Language is a biological phenomenon, a species trait
of H. Sapiens. Looked at that way, the area of what people *should* say
or write is not far distant from the area of (say) what people *should*
look like. Either way, this is moral, not oral.
>But if
>you do, you must expect others, especially those who cannot afford the
>luxury of being agnostic about such matters, to express frustration from
>time to time with the limited scope of your contribution to usage
>discussions.
This I don't understand. The luxury lies in being ignorant of the facts
(and there *are* facts) about the way the language actually works, and
replacing them with social judgements, usually about which socioeconomic
class one "should" be talking like. That's a peculiar kind of agnosticism
(< Gk a- 'not' + gno 'know'). Those who can afford *this* luxury (again,
in my experience) frequently *do* seem to express their frustration with
the limited scope of the contribution of those who do know, but that's
largely because it doesn't accord with their own preconceptions.
Strangely, it's always people who feel their own usages are superior that
display this kind of frustration.
Me, I don't care. A PhD in English grammar and semantics is sort of like
an unexpired poetic license, and therefore (since I have one) I can talk
or write anyway I like, as long as people understand me. If they don't,
that's my lookout. Of course, everybody else can, too -- and everybody
does anyway -- so it's nothing special.
- John Lawler University of Michigan Program in Linguistics
-------------------------------------------------------------
"Using Computers in Linguistics: A Practical Guide" Routledge 1998
http://www.routledge.com/routledge/linguistics/using-comp.html
M. Ranjit Mathews
Skitt wrote:
> >> That's not true. It's very common to say "with my husband and I",
> >> "to my girlfriend and I" etc. This is often viewed as a
> hypercorrection;
> >> but that doesn't mean people don't say it.
> >
> >No, no. Polar is right. Ranjit should keep his nose in the Rule Book
> >and pay no attention to the real English language as it parades past
> >him.
> >//P. Schultz
>
> All I can say is that P. Schultz is not OK with I.
Aye, aye, mate!
P&DSchultz
Robert Lipton wrote:
> ... They
> don't hear her [Polar] correcting their awful grammar which, along with their
> philosophy and underwear, probably hasn't been changed or examined in a
And Polar wrote:
> ...
> I'm still pale with horror at the effusions of one, Michael Izikoff
> (sp?), billed as Washington bureau chief of Newsweek.
>
> Within the space of a few minutes on Ray Suarez' National Public
> Radio program (THE best, BTW!), about -- what else? -- the judge's
> decision to throw out the Paula Corbin Jones suit against President
> Clinton -- Izikoff managed to commit the following:
>
> "....reported by I and others..."
>
> "...the advantage for WE reporters..."
Well, according to me, these are the reasons for these examples:
The first example ("by I and others"), Rule #2 (Base Form Used In
Coordination).
The second example ("for we reporters"), Rule #3 (Base Form Used
In Apposition).
But according to Robert Lipton, the reason is that the Washington
bureau chief for Newsweek doesn't change his underwear often enough.
//P. Schultz
Sean Holland
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
> People with an education. Curious, informed people. People who read
> and understand the day's news, and have interesting things to say
> about it. People with large vocabularies. Mathematicians,
> psychiatrists, people with masters degrees. They say "between you
> and I." (snip)
This will make it even easier for the people of the world to tell
Americans and Canadians apart.
--
Sean
To e-mail me, take out the garbage.
Skitt
P&DSchultz wrote in message <352323...@erols.com>...
>Polar wrote:
>
>> >P&DSchultz wrote:
>> [...]
>> >> If people continue to say "between you and I" for a long time
(which
>> >> seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because
of a
>> >> hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It
is
>> >> VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating
it,
>> >> and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the
educated
>> >> grown-ups they know talk.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> "Educated people?" "Educated people???!!!!" "EDUCATED PEOPLE?"
>>
>> To resuscitate one of our favorite buzzwords back at the University
of
>> Chicago (oh, what smart asses we were!):
>>
>> "Define your terms!"
>
>People with an education. Curious, informed people. People who read
>and understand the day's news, and have interesting things to say
>about it. People with large vocabularies. Mathematicians,
>psychiatrists, people with masters degrees. They say "between you
>and I." They probably wouldn't write it, but they're not particularly
>fussy about prescriptive grammar when they're talking among friends,
>and they say it. And if and when they realize it isn't formal
>written-type English, they don't care. That's not their point.
>I'm surprised you find this remarkable.
I find it appalling. But then, the educational standards have been
slipping hrere in the good old US and A for some time. There are now
quite a few people with advanced degrees who would flunk a high school
grammar and spelling test. Progress, I guess.
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <ant02202...@debussy.demon.co.uk>,
>In article <H9GT7JAV...@redwoods.demon.co.uk>, John Davies
><URL:mailto:jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> You are of course entirely at liberty to limit your linguistic studies
>> to what people actually say or write, without venturing into the
>> difficult area of recommending what they *should* say or write. But if
>> you do, you must expect others, especially those who cannot afford the
>> luxury of being agnostic about such matters, to express frustration from
>> time to time with the limited scope of your contribution to usage
>> discussions.
>Well, in that case, we make our observations more useful to these
>people. We can say, for example, that many educated speakers prefer
>to avoid the form "with my husband and I" in careful speech and
>writing.
What you professionals _seem_ to be overlooking (I don't think you actually
overlook; you just consider it outside the scope of your science) is that
language is not only biological, but social.
If there were scientists who studied beauty, they would probably tell those who
came to them and asked "What should I do to be more beautiful", that they are
free to do whatever they wish, as there are and have been many standards of
beauty in our world, and that none is inherently superior to any other.
(Some might go so far as to say, "Depends on whom you are trying to impress.")
But the average seeker-after-personal-beauty will probably feel that they have
gotten a lot more help from someone, even a layman, who says "Well, that beard
really needs to be trimmed, and a jacket you can actually button wouldn't
hurt."
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
John Davies
In article <k2TU.523$3C1.2...@news.itd.umich.edu>, "John M. Lawler"
<jla...@centipede.rs.itd.umich.edu> writes
>John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
[...]
>>You are of course entirely at liberty to limit your linguistic studies
>>to what people actually say or write, without venturing into the
>>difficult area of recommending what they *should* say or write.
>
>linguistic studies. Language is a biological phenomenon, a species trait
>of H. Sapiens. Looked at that way, the area of what people *should* say
>or write is not far distant from the area of (say) what people *should*
>look like. Either way, this is moral, not oral.
>
Oh dear. My ill-considered use of "should", with no qualification or
elaboration, seems to have cast me in the role of spiritual heir and
successor to B W Battin, a position I have no ambition to fill. For the
record, I derive much pleasure from the rich and varied dialects of
English spoken in these islands, and in places like Singapore and West
Africa, and would regret the loss of any of them.
Let me make myself clear: "should" was intended not to resemble the
injunction "you should love your neighbour, and not covet his ass", but
the recommendation "You should wear a suit" when a young man asks one
what he should put on for an interview for a job as a management
trainee. I am not even slightly interested in persuading people to
adopt a particular variety of English, or of belittling them if they
don't, any more than I am interested in dressing everyone in suits. But
I say again: when a client asks an editor for advice on how best to
express something, or a foreign student asks a teacher whether usage x
or usage y is the "correct" form of English, the teacher or editor can't
get away with saying merely "some people use x, and others use y".
>>But if
>>you do, you must expect others, especially those who cannot afford the
>>luxury of being agnostic about such matters, to express frustration from
>>time to time with the limited scope of your contribution to usage
>>discussions.
>
>This I don't understand. The luxury lies in being ignorant of the facts
>(and there *are* facts) about the way the language actually works, and
>replacing them with social judgements, usually about which socioeconomic
>class one "should" be talking like.
[...]
I haven't suggested one should be ignorant of the facts. I do suggest
that the relevant facts include a knowledge of what kinds of people use
a particular form of English.
A couple of illustrations from my own experience of the German language
may help to generalise the debate and take a little heat out of it.
Thirty years after receiving my last German lesson at school, I got a
job in that country, and immediately arranged for someone to give me
private language lessons. One of the things I could still remember from
my school days was that the preposition "wegen" was followed by the
genitive case; but I kept hearing people using it with the dative. When
I raised it with my teacher, he shook his head sorrowfully and said that
there was indeed a regrettable trend, particularly among the young, to
use it with the dative: "But you, Herr Davies, will be spending much of
your time with university professors and civil servants, and you should
cultivate a conservative, even slightly old-fashioned, form of German.
You will be respected all the more for it." Good advice, which I took:
fortunately, not being an academic linguist, he felt unconstrained in
offering it.
The other anecdote concerns an acquaintance who had been a school
teacher, but had risen to a senior position in the Cologne district
schools inspectorate. With me he spoke High German, but he told me that
at work he very often used Koelsch, the local dialect (there's a fat
two-volume bilingual dictionary of Koelsch and High German), something
he'd had to painfully learn as an adult. He'd learned it because those
who decided matters such as promotion were all locals, who used the
dialect among themselves as a kind of membership badge, and as a
shibboleth to keep outsiders away from positions of power and
influence.
To return to English, everyone knows that there are certain varieties
(is "sociolects" the right word?) which have a higher social status than
others, and which are consciously or unconsciously used as shibboleths
by those in positions of power. Every day, British national newspapers
carry expensive advertisements with headlines like "Is your English
letting you down?" aimed at those (probably the majority of the
population) who learned a different variety as children but feel they'd
be materially better off if they could master the dominant form. We may
well deplore those circumstances, but that is how things are and it
doesn't look as though they are going to change. It therefore seems to
me a pity that professional linguists won't venture an opinion about
which usages belong within the high status varieties, and which betray
their users as speakers of varieties generally regarded as of lower
social status. These are relevant considerations to teachers, editors
and writers: I don't see how linguists can criticise us for ignorance
of "the facts" if they are unwilling themselves to investigate them.
--
John Davies (jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk)
Yuno Hu
----------
In article <3531faf5...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, s.m...@ix.netcom.com
(Polar) wrote:
>I think se sounds uneducated, but not necessarily pompous.
>Just unaware.
I think 'se' sounds very unaware!
Yuno Hu
----------
In article <6g2quh$hl...@svlss.lmms.lmco.com>, "Skitt" <al...@myself.com>
wrote:
You don't understand. This usage is a result of previous educational
standards, which attempted to forestall the use of e.g. 'you and me' as the
*subject* of a sentence, where it "should" be 'you and I'. Since this was
not the normal usage of the students being so taught, the lesson backfired
and led to the use of the so-called nominative case pronouns (I, we, he,
she, they) as objects of prepositions where the natural (as well as
standard) usage would call for the so-called object forms of these pronouns
(me, us, him, her, them). This usage is a result of the high educational
standards in the US, not the lack of education. Without those "grammar
lessons", this usage would never have developed in the first place!
John Ahlstrom
Polar wrote:
>
> On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 22:48:03 -0500, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Is Mr. "tin ear" Schultz actually suggesting that "...between you and
> I..." is acceptable?
>
> No, it must be a tug I feel on my jambe. At least so I hope....
> Polar
I have observed the following for about 10 years in California
(Santa Barbara and San Francisco Bay), Boston, Washington, DC,
western New York, Chicago:and on national TV including network
news shows:
In spoken and informally written US English the forms
"you and I" and "me and you" are used interchangeably
regardless of the traditional, received case
to be used. Similarly, "Jane and I" and "me and Jane"
are used interchangeably in the same way.
Do others hear/see it elsewhere?
Do others not hear/see it elsewhere?
I doubt that we can get our customers to always [sic] ask in
a form that indicates what they are interested in [sic]:
Is <mumble> correct?
Is <mumble> acceptable <in context foo>?
In what contexts is <mumble> acceptable?
Can we, however, answer their questions, however posed,
in that way?
John K Ahlstrom
jahl...@cisco.com
--
I love language change. It's language changes
I hate.
apologies to L van Pelt
(Can anyone point me to an original source that would
tell me whether the "L" in "L van Pelt" was Lucy or Linus?)
Maria Conlon
P&DSchultz wrote in message
>I really thought I had explained this. I was attempting to intuit
rules
>from the language as it is used. Native speakers say "between you and
>I." LOTS and LOTS of native speakers say that. The people whose
>ancestors made English what it is today say that. The OWNERS of the
>LANGUAGE say that. I was trying to figure out the rules they use,
>inside their heads, which result in "between you and I." Personally,
I
>don't say that, and I don't write that. But I have some very dear,
>intelligent, witty, informed, interesting friends who DO say it, and
I
>ACCEPT it when they use it in relaxed conversation out on the deck
next
>to the grilling chicken and the chardonnay. So, to that extent, yes,
I
>consider it acceptable.
IMHO:
(1) I agree "between you and I" is used very frequently.
(2) I think it's used by people who *think* it's proper because they
have heard someone they consider "very educated" say it. And/or, they
have been corrected when saying "me" (as in "Tom and me went to the
store") where "I" is the proper usage.
(3) I'll bet that the people who say "between you and I" probably
consider "between you and me" to be incorrect, but they often do not
say so. (On one occasion, though, someone informed me, in a quite
snotty manner, that "between you and me" was wrong. I took delight in
proving otherwise.)
(4) I feel -- strike that -- I *know* "between you and I" is incorrect
usage.
(5) I do not exactly "accept" such usage. I just overlook it.
(6) The exceptions to overlooking it: In this newsgroup (sometimes);
in work situations to prevent (if I have the opportunity) the
incorrect usage from being published in any way; when I hear my
children say it (which they do not any more, at least in my hearing).
(7) If "between you and me" ever becomes labeled "correct" or
"acceptable" in grammar books, will I use it? Very likely not -- I'll
probably be beyond using anything.
--
Maria Conlon
mcon...@sprynet.com
Email copies of replies will be appreciated.
P&DSchultz
Mimi wrote:
>
> On Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:14:51 -0500, "Skitt" <al...@myself.com> wrote:
>
> >I find it appalling. But then, the educational standards have been
> >slipping hrere in the good old US and A for some time. There are now
> >quite a few people with advanced degrees who would flunk a high school
> >grammar and spelling test. Progress, I guess.
>
> grammar and spelling test. ...
If the test were constructed by my children's teachers, the *correct*
answer would be "between you and I." So people who talk that way
(including the teachers) would pass with an A. One of my children's
teachers sent home a handwritten note that not only had several
misspelled words, but some of these words had the tiny notation,
"(sp?)" written above them. She wasn't even ashamed enough to check
the dictionary. So people should please stop suggesting "more English
instruction" or "more grammar lessons in school" as a solution. It
only makes it worse.
//P. Schultz
John M. Lawler
John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
>To return to English, everyone knows that there are certain varieties
>(is "sociolects" the right word?) which have a higher social status than
>others, and which are consciously or unconsciously used as shibboleths
>by those in positions of power.
"Sociolect", or just "lect". There is a Lectological Society, in fact.
But "higher social status" is *really* oversimplifying. There are lects
for everything. The way one speaks in the locker room is very different
from the way one speaks in church. Certainly there are politeness
issues involved -- you don't want to ask your grandmother to pass the
f***ing salt at Thanksgiving dinner, for instance. "High" just mentions
one of the dimensions.
>Every day, British national newspapers
>carry expensive advertisements with headlines like "Is your English
>letting you down?" aimed at those (probably the majority of the
>population) who learned a different variety as children but feel they'd
>be materially better off if they could master the dominant form.
One of the major purposes of advertising is to make its readers
dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. This is also a purpose of
a considerable amount of political verbiage. One need not believe
everything one is told, especially if told by someone trying to sell
something.
>We may well deplore those circumstances, but that is how things are and
>it doesn't look as though they are going to change.
*Which* is "the way it is"? That there are stupid and/or ignorant people
who have political and/or economic power? Certainly. That they may use
it arbitrarily and maliciously, and conceive dislikes against others, and
even harm them, based on irrelevant characteristics like skin color or
pronunciation? Certainly. These facts are only relevant, though,
when one is dealing with such people, and placed in a position where one
is inescapably subservient to them. I don't think you've demonstrated
that such circumstances are common enough to warrant paranoid measures
like eschewing the full range of sociolects in all circumstances, and
limiting oneself to only politically correct versions of grammar.
>It therefore seems to
>me a pity that professional linguists won't venture an opinion about
>which usages belong within the high status varieties, and which betray
>their users as speakers of varieties generally regarded as of lower
>social status.
Oh, they venture opinions aplenty. There's a large contingent of
sociolinguists who vent a lot of ink and spleen on these topics.
But the opinions are based on *facts*, not on "general regardings",
about "lower social status". Interestingly, it turns out that
most of the common shibboleths don't represent reality very well.
Henry Higgins was a trained phonetician, unlike most prescriptive
grammarians or ortholects.
>These are relevant considerations to teachers, editors
>and writers: I don't see how linguists can criticise us for ignorance
>of "the facts" if they are unwilling themselves to investigate them.
These are not linguistic facts. These are political facts, or perhaps
socioeconomic facts, and in many cases just fantasy and not facts at all.
In any event, linguists have no more business telling people how they
should talk than how they should dress; people are gonna talk the way they
talk, and all the well-meaning advice in the world isn't gonna change
that.
P&DSchultz
Sean Holland wrote:
>
> P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> > People with an education. Curious, informed people. People who read
> > and understand the day's news, and have interesting things to say
> > about it. People with large vocabularies. Mathematicians,
> > and I." (snip)
>
> This will make it even easier for the people of the world to tell
> Americans and Canadians apart.
I don't see how. Most of the people I was talking about ARE
Canadians, but not all of them.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
> >seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because of a
> >hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It is
> >VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating it,
> >and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the educated
> >grown-ups they know talk.
> ...
> in this or other languages.
Well, if you consider the century-long ban on "split infinitives"
to have been the norm, then that is an example.
> My only quibble is with "educated grown-ups". Nor very well educated, I would
> harrumph, at least not in English nor in logic.
If logic were very much involved in language, then those peoples whose
languages use double and triple negatives to express a negative idea
would not produce world-class scientists. But they do (the Russians,
for example).
There's one other thing. If case selection is a matter of good sense,
or neatness, or good taste, then I assume all those who are intolerant
of the "between you and I" crowd can mentally parse sentences such as
these:
I saw a young girl gazing about, somewhat open-mouthed and confused,
who/whom I guessed correctly to be she/her who/whom I had come to meet.
Mr. Clinton is a man who/whom the people were convinced was doomed,
and who/whom the pundits claimed would never regain his former status.
If your choices were immediate and automatic, and also correct,
then bravo. But if you had to go back and think about it AT ALL, or
-- especially -- if you MESSED UP, then the difference between you
and the "between you and I" crowd is only quantitative. You're them.
Ahem. I mean... You're they.
//P. Schultz
Robert Lieblich
PSchultz wrote:
<snip>
> There's one other thing. If case selection is a matter of good sense,
> or neatness, or good taste, then I assume all those who are intolerant
> of the "between you and I" crowd can mentally parse sentences such as
> these:
>
> I saw a young girl gazing about, somewhat open-mouthed and confused,
> who/whom I guessed correctly to be she/her who/whom I had come to meet.
>
> Mr. Clinton is a man who/whom the people were convinced was doomed,
> and who/whom the pundits claimed would never regain his former status.
>
> If your choices were immediate and automatic, and also correct,
> then bravo. But if you had to go back and think about it AT ALL, or
> -- especially -- if you MESSED UP, then the difference between you
> and the "between you and I" crowd is only quantitative. You're them.
> Ahem. I mean... You're they.
I ain't they and they ain't me. I got every one of them quizzers right
on the first try. And I'm so confident of my rightness that I ain't
even gonna bother to post my answers to let y'all see that they was each
and every one of them correct.
Pogo (speaking on behalf of Walt Kelly) long ago said: "We have met the
enemy and he is us." I don't see how anyone can improve on that.
Bob Lieblich
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>There's one other thing. If case selection is a matter of good sense,
>or neatness, or good taste, then I assume all those who are intolerant
>of the "between you and I" crowd can mentally parse sentences such as
>these:
>
>I saw a young girl gazing about, somewhat open-mouthed and confused,
>who/whom I guessed correctly to be she/her who/whom I had come to meet.
>
>Mr. Clinton is a man who/whom the people were convinced was doomed,
>and who/whom the pundits claimed would never regain his former status.
>
>If your choices were immediate and automatic, and also correct,
>then bravo. But if you had to go back and think about it AT ALL, or
>-- especially -- if you MESSED UP, then the difference between you
>and the "between you and I" crowd is only quantitative. You're them.
>Ahem. I mean... You're they.
I think the second is easy, but the first is a pretty good puzzle. It supports
your argument, but I would offer the following in mitigations:
1) Correct usage can't be determined until the sentence is complete and
all the relationships are revealed;
2) If doubt remains, it may be (I don't think it is in either of these
cases) that the sentence is capable of two different parsings, with different
meanings;
3) If doubt still remains, it may be that we simply did not learn the rules
well enough;
4) If there is no difference in meaning regardless of the choice that is
made, then that argues that there is no good reason for maintaining case at
all.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
John Davies
In article <eLhV.718$3C1.3...@news.itd.umich.edu>, "John M. Lawler"
<jla...@moonpatrol.rs.itd.umich.edu> writes
>John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
[enormous snippage of JD and JL]
>>These are relevant considerations to teachers, editors
>>and writers: I don't see how linguists can criticise us for ignorance
>>of "the facts" if they are unwilling themselves to investigate them.
>
>These are not linguistic facts. These are political facts, or perhaps
>socioeconomic facts, and in many cases just fantasy and not facts at all.
>In any event, linguists have no more business telling people how they
>should talk than how they should dress; people are gonna talk the way they
>talk, and all the well-meaning advice in the world isn't gonna change
>that.
I don't want to go into one of those wearying point-by-point arguments
that instantly drive everyone to the "next" button on their news
readers. I'll simply say that John Lawler's eloquent posting effectively
demolishes a whole range of positions, none of which are held by me. I
feel rather like a participant in that ridiculous party game where two
people are blindfolded and given rolled-up newspapers with which to swat
one another; the distant sound of John's paper swishing through the
innocent air all but drowned out by the sound of my own landing on
various bits of furniture.
Before we all go off and play something else, I'd like to get back to
the point that started this exchange, and ask John a couple of
questions. Suppose he were a teacher of English as a foreign language,
and a student of his asked whether "between you and I" or "between you
and me" was the correct form. How would he reply?
Secondly, which form does he use himself? And why?
--
John Davies (jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk)
Robert Lieblich
John M. Lawler wrote:
<snip>
> I use "between me and you", or "between you and me", depending on which I
> mean. Either way, I always use the objective case form of the first
> person pronoun after a preposition, because it's simpler that way.
> However, just to express my individuality, I always use the *nominative*
> form of the second person pronoun in that construction.
Yeah, but do you use the singular or the plural nominative of the second
person? Inquiring minds want to know.
And if it's the plural, is it "youse," "y'all," or some other form?
Bob Lieblich
John M. Lawler
John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
>John Lawler <jla...@moonpatrol.rs.itd.umich.edu> writes
>>John Davies <jo...@redwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
>[enormous snippage of JD and JL]
>>>These are relevant considerations to teachers, editors
>>>and writers: I don't see how linguists can criticise us for ignorance
>>>of "the facts" if they are unwilling themselves to investigate them.
>>These are not linguistic facts. These are political facts, or perhaps
>>socioeconomic facts, and in many cases just fantasy and not facts at all.
>>In any event, linguists have no more business telling people how they
>>should talk than how they should dress; people are gonna talk the way they
>>talk, and all the well-meaning advice in the world isn't gonna change
>>that.
>Before we all go off and play something else, I'd like to get back to
>the point that started this exchange, and ask John a couple of
>questions. Suppose he were a teacher of English as a foreign language,
>and a student of his asked whether "between you and I" or "between you
>and me" was the correct form. How would he reply?
When I was a teacher of English as a foreign language, my students rarely
asked questions like that. Their questions were more commonly about
constructions that they encountered that were not covered by the standard
texts, like "You betch" (as a reply to "Thank you"). The kind of
shibboleth that disturbs un- or over-tutored native speakers, like
"between you and I", is quite rare in adult English learners, who are far
more concerned with, and have usually studied, the actual rules of English
instead of the mythical ones. Since this particular one is a result of
native speakers hypercorrecting because of overenthusiastic pedagogy, it's
not the sort of thing they'd ask about.
On those rare occasions when they'd tell me they'd been "corrected" by a
native speaker, but didn't understand why, my standard tactic was to
explain why there was a problem with that particular shibboleth, and how
to avoid disturbing innocent native speakers unnecessarily. Facts are
ever so much better than prescriptions.
>Secondly, which form does he use himself? And why?
I use "between me and you", or "between you and me", depending on which I
mean. Either way, I always use the objective case form of the first
person pronoun after a preposition, because it's simpler that way.
However, just to express my individuality, I always use the *nominative*
form of the second person pronoun in that construction.
- John Lawler University of Michigan Program in Linguistics
Peter Moylan
John M. Lawler <jla...@qbert.rs.itd.umich.edu> wrote:
>>Secondly, which form does he use himself? And why?
>
>I use "between me and you", or "between you and me", depending on which I
>mean. Either way, I always use the objective case form of the first
>person pronoun after a preposition, because it's simpler that way.
>However, just to express my individuality, I always use the *nominative*
>form of the second person pronoun in that construction.
Ye?
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://www.ee.newcastle.edu.au/users/staff/peter/Moylan.html
P&DSchultz
Lauren Holmes wrote:
>
> On Wed, 01 Apr 1998 19:07:16 -0500, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
> >If people continue to say "between you and I" for a long time (which
> >seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because of a
> >hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It is
> >VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating it,
> >and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the educated
> >grown-ups they know talk.
>
> "normal" English among adults and kids alike. Don't make it right,
> though, do it?
We weren't talking about what was "right" at present. We were talking
about what is current now, and what might be "right" in the future.
There's no reason "ain't got none" shouldn't be correct some day.
Similar things are correct in Russian, Hebrew, and Spanish.
//P. Schultz
//P. Schultz
Lauren Holmes
>If people continue to say "between you and I" for a long time (which
>seems probable), then it won't matter whether it arose because of a
>hypercorrection or whatever. It will just be normal English. It is
>VERY common. Millions of children are hearing it and imitating it,
>and to them it's no hypercorrection -- it's just the way the educated
>grown-ups they know talk.
I've lived in areas where "ain't gone none" is also considered
"normal" English among adults and kids alike. Don't make it right,
though, do it?
--Lauren
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
It's all just more of what you can expect from giving women the vote,
and making them work for a living. Mother's knee=TV.
vertigo
Now is the time for YOU AND I to cuddle close together
All thru the night, I'll save you from the terror on the screen
--Rod Temperton, "Thriller"
************************************************
"They are not long, the days of wine and roses."
Ernest Dowson, VITAE SUMMA BREVIS
************************************************
Lars Eighner
In our last episode <352b8416....@news.earthlink.net>,
the lovely and talented lho...@earthlink.net (Lauren Holmes)
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
|I've lived in areas where "ain't gone none" is also considered
|"normal" English among adults and kids alike. Don't make it right,
|though, do it?
Well, yes it does. Of course the phrase is likely to be judged wrong
or peculiar by speakers of other dialects, but no dialect has the
patent on right. Some other dialects have, however, pretty much
cornered the market on economic and political power, so all speakers
of English dialects would be well advised to acquire some fluency
in Toady English (TE).
--
Lars Eighner 700 Hearn #101 Austin TX 78703 eig...@io.com
(512) 474-1920 (FAX answers 6th ring) http://www.io.com/%7Eeighner.html
Please visit my web bookstore: http://www.io.com/%7Eeighner/bookstor.html
* ####### <------Scratch off to reveal your prize!