LL-L "Grammar" 2005.05.07 (07) [E]

Tue Jun 7 21:30:29 UTC 2005

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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.05.07 (05) [E]

Dear Gary

Subject: Grammar
as far as I'm concerned let 'whom' die a death. I
> never use it, and I don't think the majority of Brits
> do either unless they're being particularly pedantic.
> It's the same thing as 'if I was' instead of 'if I
> were' and saying 'me and you' in all positions,
> including when it's the subject, instead of 'you and
> I'. It's purely due to the evils of proscriptivism
> that people say things like 'between you and I'. Let
> language live and breathe instead of trying to cage it
> into some kind of perceived 'correct' formula.

Seconded!

Only let nobody try to build a rule on any of the above. I will continue
using 'whom' when it feels right, & 'were' & 'I' as well. I hope I am not
prey to hypercorrection, but I'm seldom pulled up on this matter, in a
nation of linguistic pedants. By the way, have you heard of the owl who told
her owlet, "How many times do I have to tell you it is not 'To whom', but
'To who'!"

Yrs,
Mark

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.05.07 (02) [E]

Kevin Caldwell wrote:
> Ah, well, obviously I was referring to the loss of the _correct_ usage of
> "whom".

Ever since this topic cropped up here, I 've been coming across examples
left and write. Here's one from a mystery by Ann Granger that I am currently
reading:

"A gormless youth by the name of Darren whom his parents hope will benefit
from attending the local college of further education."

Followed by, three pages further:
"The last I saw of my aunt was standing by her gate, waving goodbye to me."

Makes you wonder whether the aunt maybe has a dog named "The last I saw", or
something like that.

Also, I have a job translating the website of a very well-known British
author into German, and in the biographical part of her site, there is a
sentence that states, "(the setting) prompted my sister and I to re-enact (a
certain dramatic scene)". I called this to the author's attention but,
although some other errors that I found were fixed in the English version,
this one was left the way it was - either she thought that this was indeed
correct, or she was just getting tired of my nit-picking... ;-)

Actually, in books published during the last ten years or so, I seem to come
across spelling, grammar and other errors on just about every other page.
Whatever happened to editors? Do they no longer read through the stuff, or
at least not all of it? And what about at least spellchecking the
manuscript? Is it just me, or is this simply no longer a priority?

Gabriele Kahn

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From: heather rendall <HeatherRendall at compuserve.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.05.07 (05) [E]

Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
>It's purely due to the evils of proscriptivism
that people say things like 'between you and I'.<

No it's not!
It is due to history

Never in the whole length of time that IE has being decveloping into all
its many children languages, has a subject pronoun followed a preposition

Prepositions can be followed by accusative, genitive and dative  BUT not
nominative.

But when used as a subject I would agree.
The difference between "Me and John are going down town " or "John and me
are going down town" and "John and I are going down town" is a chocie
between the former French grammar " Jean et moi, nous allons en ville" and
German grammar " Johann und ich gehen in die Stadt.
And whether you follow one of the other is up to you.

I think many have been influenced ed by the classicists who hear Latin
ringing in their ears and say " ego et Johannis (?) ...." and so think that
John and I is more correct.

Heather

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From: David Barrow <davidab at telefonica.net.pe>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.05.07 (05) [E]

> From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Grammar
>
> Hi all
>
> as far as I'm concerned let 'whom' die a death. I
> never use it, and I don't think the majority of Brits
> do either unless they're being particularly pedantic.
> It's the same thing as 'if I was' instead of 'if I
> were' and saying 'me and you' in all positions,
> including when it's the subject, instead of 'you and
> I'. It's purely due to the evils of proscriptivism
> that people say things like 'between you and I'. Let
> language live and breathe instead of trying to cage it
> into some kind of perceived 'correct' formula.
>
> Gary
>
> http://hometown.aol.com/taylor16471/myhomepage/index.html
>
> ----------
>
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Grammar
>
> Gary (above):
>
>> It's purely due to the evils of proscriptivism
>> that people say things like 'between you and I'. Let
>> language live and breathe instead of trying to cage it
>> into some kind of perceived 'correct' formula.
>
> Hear, hear!  Once again our Gary did to me what in German is known as
> _aus
> dem Herzen sprechen_.  Once again he summarized the problem very
> nicely in
> my opinion.
>
> Reinhard/Ron

My view is they insist on  subject after 'be' : 'it is I'  why don't
they insist on the verb agreeing with the complement as it does in other
languages: 'soy yo' =  it am I .

Give them these two sentences and ask them which is correct and why

I want  the  winner to be I
I want the winner to be me

David Barrow

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