"Obsolete," but still in use

[Jonathan Lighter]

I agree with Arnold and Wilson: "I" is impossible here, but "myself" is OK.

  JL

"Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
Subject: Re: "Obsolete," but still in use
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On Sep 24, 2006, at 8:39 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:

> I'd call the "me" usage colloquial. Uninterestingly, I'm not sure
> if I use it.
>
> Wilson Gray wrote: ----------------------
> Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: "Obsolete," but still in use
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Isn't "Me, I really like that" pretty standard? I also would use such
> a locution without giving it a second thought...

it seems colloquial to me too, but perfectly fine in speech and
informal writing (that is, it's not non-standard). but i absolutely
could not use "I" to mark the topic like this. i think that either
you don't use the construction, or you use a non-nominative:
"me" colloquial
"myself" or "me myself" non-standard
or you go for another topic-marking construction, like "as for".

arnold

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