[Ads-l] Self-deprecating Gen-Z "Not me..."

[Mark Mandel]

«The student is looking at examples he’s observed with gerunds, as in “Not
me being lazy”, and I see TikTok illustrations of “Not me being goofy”.»

Those aren't gerunds, they're straightforward present participles. A gerund
use would be something like "*Being* lazy is not my style."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gerund :
any of several linguistic forms analogous to the Latin gerund in languages
other than Latin
especially *: *the English verbal noun
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verbal%20noun> ending in *-ing*
that has the function of a substantive
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/substantive#h2> and at the same
time shows the verbal features of tense, voice, and capacity to take
adverbial qualifiers and to govern (see govern sense 4
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/govern>) objects

https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=gerund [American Heritage
dict.]:
   In other languages [than Latin], a verbal noun analogous to the Latin
gerund, such as the English form ending in *-ing* when used as a noun, as
in *singing* in *We admired the choir's singing.*

Mark Mandel

On Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 3:53 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> A student here is investigating the apparently Gen Z construction “Not me”
> + gerund.  I see from googling sites like
> https://stayhipp.com/glossary/what-does-not-me-mean-on-social-media/ <
> https://stayhipp.com/glossary/what-does-not-me-mean-on-social-media/>
> that “not me” is a meme on its own, without the following gerund, with the
> attribution to “Gen-Z” and the observation that it is "used by an
> individual to poke fun at their own embarrassing, toxic, or self-absorbed
> behavior”
>
> The student is looking at examples he’s observed with gerunds, as in “Not
> me being lazy”, and I see TikTok illustrations of “Not me being goofy”.
> Apparently “not y’all” exists too.  Is there any literature on this, or
> speculation on its origin?
>
> LH
>
>

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