nomconjobjs: between you and me/I

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Feb 22, 2010, at 6:13 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>
>
> My point wasn't that "...I"  had virtually replaced "...me," just
> that it
> had virtually replaced it in speech.  That's precisely consistent
> with MWEU.

consistent with, but not supported by.  all MWDEU says is that
"between you and I" is "hard to find" in print -- by which, i assume
it means in relatively formal writing.  of course, when MWDEU was
being put together, the staff didn't have a lot of access to informal
writing, but now with the web as a source of lots of informal writing,
we can see that *both* variants occur with some frequency in informal
writing.

both variants also occur in speech, even relatively formal speech.
some speakers seem to be partial to nomconjobjs in speech (even if
they don't use them in formal writing), others seem to use them
rarely, others not at all.  and the "social values" of the variants
differ from speaker to speaker as well.

[by the way, i've been using "between you and I" to stand in for all
nomconjobjs, but that might be misleading, since there are probably
people for who "between you and I" is a formula.]

arnold

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