they and them

[Page Stephens]

"We three, we're all alone,
"Living in memory,
"My shadow, my echo, and me."

The Inkspots

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 4/15/2005 3:08:32 PM
> Subject: Re: they and them
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: they and them
>
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>
> At 2:52 PM -0400 4/15/05, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> >In a message dated 4/15/05 9:57:48 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
> >
> >
> >>
> >>  Well, perhaps, but note also "Me, myself, and I".  Of course, in
> >>  their classic (1975) paper on the topic, Bill Cooper and Haj Ross did
> >>  call the overarching principle "Me First".
> >>
> >
> >I do think that "Me, myself, and I" is a sardonic reference to the
> >prescriptivist admonition that "I" should come last in a compound.
> >Still "Me" definitely
> >acts like the unmarked case in folk speech, as in "Me 'n' Jim's buddies."
>
> Yes, if memory serves, Cooper & Ross brought up the "natural" nature
> of "me and him", "me and you" (conforming to the Me First principle)
> and the learned nature of "he and I", "you and I".  But for them the
> principle would only be relevant for distinguishing person and number
> for pronouns, not case.
>
> Larry