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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 0:51:37 GMT
Huckle, I wasn’t calling YOU out for misusing pronouns. I was sharing a rule of thumb to make it easier for those who aren’t sure which pronoun to use. I KNOW you wouldn’t speak that way. And it IS the Pet Peeve thread, after all!
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 5:11:00 GMT
.... current common ungrammatical usage of objective case pronouns in place of those of the subjective case. "Me" being in the objective case cannot be the subject of a sentence Can you just run a few examples past me. I'm not aware of what those things are and why "Me" being in the objective case cannot be the subject of a sentence. I tend to know what is good and bad English but, seriously, I did struggle at school with anything other than what a verb and a noun is. Things like an 'objective case pronoun' mean nothing at all. What is an objective case pronoun, what is a subjective case pronoun and why can't and objective be used in place of a subjective, plus a bonus question, does that mean you can't use a subjective case pronoun in place of an objective case pronoun either?
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Post by bjd on Nov 28, 2019 8:17:10 GMT
Good try, Huckle, but I think Kilby's shorter lesson was easy enough: just drop the other pronoun and see if it works.
My wife and me went to dinner -> me went to dinner. yes or no?
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 10:58:24 GMT
Huckle, no not putting you on. There are things even I don't know. But that never stops me having an opinion on them.
I'd never say, my wife and me went to dinner, nor would I say my wife and I went to dinner. I would say, me and my wife went to dinner or in the extreme, to be awkward, my wife went to dinner and me too.
I can sort of understand what the point is. The technicalities of it though pass me by. I'm sure I could understand it better if I put my mind to it and I can only applaud anyone to whom it is natural to know. I had great difficulties with their schoolwork when my kids were learning English and they couldn't understand why I didn't know all these things when, as they said, "But you're English!"
Carry on though if needed, it's interesting.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 11:04:30 GMT
Sorry, one thing - "He runs faster than me" should be "he runs faster than I"? He runs faster than I can? I can't run as fast as he can?
(He runs faster than my wife and I?) I'm making dinner for my wife and I?
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 28, 2019 11:44:24 GMT
Yes, one of the things that I learned in grammar was to extend the sentence to find the correct pronoun. "He runs faster than I can run." It also works for who and whom.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 11:58:46 GMT
Who and whom, my biggest grammar peeve.
(Who and Whom walked into a bar. Barkeep couldn’t decide which to serve....)
”Whom” almost never SOUNDS right to me, unless the words “to” or “for” immediately precede it. Trying it both ways often doesn’t work for me. Whom almost always sounds awkward.
Many people - even newspaper writers - seem to use “whom” EVERY time, apparently thinking that it’s better to use whom and be wrong, than to be wrong using who.
Whom cares? Nope! To whom it may concern, yup!
But K2, perhaps you could expound on your rule for who and whom to help those of us (for) whom those words present a dilemma.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 28, 2019 12:50:08 GMT
Who are you talking to? <--- incorrect grammar To whom are you talking <--- correct grammar
Obviously, this proves something that all of us already know. "Whom" is on its way out, leaving grammatical wreckage behind.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 13:07:25 GMT
I appreciated the lesson, too, huckle.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 13:12:13 GMT
Who are you talking to? <--- incorrect grammar To whom are you talking <--- correct grammar Obviously, this proves something that all of us already know. "Whom" is on its way out, leaving grammatical wreckage behind. Not in my experience, K2. “Whom” is on its way to being overused to death in America. Instead of either of your examples, people around here will say “Whom are you talking to?” thus breaking the rule of not ending a sentence with a preposition. Something up with which I cannot put.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 14:01:39 GMT
Ok. Understood.
1) Then, He runs faster than myself?
2) But, I'm making dinner for me and my wife, is wrong? As is, I'm making dinner for myself and my wife? Or is that one ok? Can I be put before my wife in some way?
3) My wife and I are making dinner is fine then, no? But - My wife and I are making dinner for us? Or, My wife and I are making dinner for ourselves?
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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 14:20:15 GMT
Mark, you and your wife will STARVE if you put off making dinner until you can say it right!
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 28, 2019 14:56:13 GMT
In this new era of total equality it seems that Mark has as much of a right to go before his wife as his wife has to go before him.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 28, 2019 15:57:49 GMT
Not sure he’s brave enough.
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Post by fumobici on Nov 28, 2019 16:14:00 GMT
Who are you talking to? <--- incorrect grammar To whom are you talking <--- correct grammar Obviously, this proves something that all of us already know. "Whom" is on its way out, leaving grammatical wreckage behind. Almost nobody within the spectrum of normal would conversationally say "To whom are you talking?". Any normal person would ask, "Who are you talking to?". I would argue that this not only makes the former correct English, but makes the latter an affectation. But I view language from a functionalist position; the idea is to communicate, not to impress or to be judgmental. One of English's great strengths is that its grammatical rules are so often ignored. I go to an Italian-English conversational group in Anghiari, and there is inevitable relief when I (semi-jokingly) reassure the Italians that non-academic English has almost no grammar, so just relax and dive in.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 28, 2019 16:31:08 GMT
Our views are beside the point.
The cyber and tweet generation have already ensured that language as some of us knew it has already been changed beyond recognition and there is no going back. Little folkloric language groups don't even merit a footnote in the scheme of things.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 16:41:25 GMT
I am nearly at the end then. There is still one question which has not been definitively answered even after a few tries and it is right back at the beginning that helped start it all off. I'm being told what is wrong, but not what is right, unless I missed it somewhere -
He runs faster than me ---- apparently wrong. He runs faster than myself ----- also wrong. He..........(fill in the blanks).......................... - is grammatically correct.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 16:44:01 GMT
Mick, I would only put myself in front of the wife if we were being shot at.
Even if we were walking through a minefield, I'd let her go first.
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Post by bjd on Nov 28, 2019 16:52:34 GMT
From what I have read, English grammar is a bit strange because of the 19th century emphasis on trying to make it conform to Latin rules, although English is at its basis a Germanic language. It does have a lot of words from Romance languages.
I too believe that for language learners, it's better to speak with mistakes than to hesitate and never say anything for fear of making a mistake. But, native speakers should at least try to speak correctly. I realize too that this is difficult since grammar hasn't been taught in school for decades. I remember learning it, but not using the terms of subjective and objective nouns. I know that stuff from learning foreign languages though.
OnlyMark should also know some of that stuff since he speaks German which uses declensions.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 28, 2019 17:10:36 GMT
He runs faster than me ---- apparently wrong. He runs faster than myself ----- also wrong. He..........(fill in the blanks).......................... - is grammatically correct. "He runs faster than I" -- because the extended sentence is "he runs faster than I run."
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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 17:23:50 GMT
Case closed, then.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 19:28:53 GMT
Declensions - yep, now I've looked it up I know what they are. Yes, I speak some German (Einfaches Deutsch) but it has more been learnt by rote and familiarity than the theory of grammar.
Case can be closed, but I leave you with the thought that no matter which is grammatically correct, you are in a cafe with friends and they ask about the meal preparation skills of your partner. "Who is the better cook?" Assuming your partner is better before you start getting picky, do you without thinking about it, say,
1) "He/She's a better cook than I." 2) "He/She's a better cook than I am." 3) "He/She's a better cook than me."
Personally, 1) and 2) sound clunky and unnatural, the first more so than the second, so I will use 3) and shoulder the burdens of my grammatical inaccuracy even though I now know better. Thank you for the lesson.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 28, 2019 19:45:43 GMT
Like it or not, language moves on. Look how different 18th century English is compared to present day.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 28, 2019 19:57:45 GMT
Methinks you are right.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 28, 2019 20:05:01 GMT
Like it or not, language moves on. Look how different 18th century English is compared to present day. Forsooth!
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Post by Kimby on Nov 28, 2019 20:36:27 GMT
And didn’t we endure the old English of Canterbury Tales in high school? Almost a foreign language.
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Post by questa on Nov 29, 2019 1:07:14 GMT
"Where are Johnnie's books" "That's them on the table"
"No... those are they, over there"
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Post by rikita on Nov 29, 2019 21:13:25 GMT
pet peeve: seeing something in a threat here that i want to reply to, and seeing i am late to the discussion and someone else already said what i was going to say ...
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 30, 2019 23:35:57 GMT
My closest supermarket closed unexpectedly for two days and then reopened with completely new flooring, totally new checkout stands, new refrigerated cases in a different location and basically a completely different layout. On top of that, it was decorated for Christmas, something it had never done before. I want to know how a crappy supermarket can do this in 48 hours when it takes the rest of us months and months to get anything done.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 30, 2019 23:48:44 GMT
I want to know why American supermarkets stay open throughout a remodel, with major disruptions to the customer experience AND taking 6 months to complete. I much prefer the Parisian model.
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