case choice by rhyme

[Wilson Gray]

R&B lyric from "My True Story," by The Jive Five:

This story is true, dear
It is no lie
The names have been changed, dear
To protect you and I

-Wilson Gray



On 9/21/05, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      case choice by rhyme
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> another kind of example, which came by on my iTunes  (sung by Blossom
> Dearie) a little while ago...
>
> from "You for Me", music by Harold Arlen, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer
> (1959):
>
> Take a look and see
> You've hooked the she
> Who'll agree
> Quite cheerfully...
>
> here, the personal pronoun (in the nominative, in this case) is used
> like an ordinary head noun.
>
> i'm sure there are other examples out there of
>    a/the she/her/he/him
> but search engines really aren't good at picking the good stuff out.
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), annoyed to discover that the
> lyrics don't seem to be available on the web, presumably because of
> copyright fanatacism (on the Harold Arlen site, i was given the
> option of licensing the song)
>


--
-Wilson Gray