Grammar Question re. Correct Pronoun

[Smith1942]

Well, Deb is a very academic person - at least, that's the impression I get - and I'm a book editor. Some people just like to discuss and analyse things. For my part, I thought your sentence was right but I couldn't for the life of me think of the grammar rule, so I had to think about it for a bit - a process I found enjoyable, and during which I learned a little something.

I don't think I gave any rotten examples - obviously, no one would say "Me do" and I've never thought they would, US or UK - I was just demonstrating what happens when you invert the grammar rule. Carnage!

Well, I hardly thought what I said even amounted to a sentence. It was more like (warning: semi-ancient cultural reference that will date me) OOO! OOO! Mr. Kotter!! ME! ME!!

I was referring to the examples in the other thread, most of which were pretty egregious, such as our supposed problems with "bring" versus "take", our supposed inability to get tense correct, and the assertion that we don't use past participle.

This is unfair, and tarring with far too broad a brush, IMO. Some, and really not even that many, Americans do just that, but as I mentioned before, even living in a poor mostly rural state, I rarely hear the grammar errors you are pointing out as common. Where ARE you, may I ask? Now, I DO hear some other regionalisms that would likely make your ears bleed, but for the most part we can use tenses just fine, even in these here parts. Really.

Even as the plutocracy tightens its hold, being American is still very much tied up with being informal and (as they say here) "not gettin' above yer raisin'", which I will tranlsate into more understandable formal English for you as, "Don't try acting or speaking as if you're above your station." We are, after all, all about the common man, right? I can speak and write much more formally and precisely than I do most of the time. Back in the day, I was taught English by my mother, who was a product of the Catholic parochial school system, and they took English very seriously indeed. I've admittedly gone to seed in some ways when it comes to things grammatical, but then I haven't read ye old "Plain English Handbook" in about 30 years either. I once could diagram any sentence, but now I would not know a dangling participle if you beat me with it. I'm relying on memory, and that isn't always reliable in a world where adverbs are going the way of the dodo, and even I use IM to say to my friends, "S'up?"

Ha ha, well I'm in central Boston and they are bad offenders with the bring and take gettin' all mixed up! I also hear "I wish I would have went" instead of "I wish I had gone" and similar constructions all the time, and I only ever hear the simple past. If I didn't hear this stuff all the time, I wouldn't have noticed! Oh yes, I worked for two years in the publishing house (Pearson) which owns the Financial Times and Penguin, and I heard my editorial colleagues making these mistakes! It made me bash my head on my desk. I am not alone in pointing out these grammatical errors - American sources of grammar, such as the famed Chicago Manual of Style, Grammar Girl, and Elements of Style are also against these things. They are not considered standard American by American language experts. It's not just me objecting - not by a long shot!

Maybe it's down to being in a city. I've been in Texas and Virginia - only for short vacations - and I didn't hear any of this stuff that I hear around here, but perhaps I wasn't there long enough. I've been to New York quite a few times and I don't think I heard these things there either.

I don't think that using correct forms of English is being above your raisin. I am English, after all, and it's natural to use the version of English from, well, England. What with being English and all...

And regardless of how informal America is, you still have a use for standard English, don't you? What would you think if you picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal to be informed that "This week, Obama brung his children to Hawaii, having mentioned at a recent reception that he wished he would have brought them there before now." You'd be appalled!

 

[packrat]

Packrat, you're so naughty!!!

On my reply that I couldn't post because the other thread was closed, I said that your example of flowery language was very impressive and that you could obviously get your royalty on with the best of them!

Hahaha, not bad for a Midwestern hick eh?

And to me, the phrase "It is I" is then followed by "The Count. They call me The Count because I love to count things, ah ah ah!"

What have you been reading - some Gothic horror novel??

Sesame Street, actually!

 

[Smith1942]

Ahh, Miss Piggy. Now there's a girl with standards.

Or is that the Muppet Show? Which one is the Cookie Monster from? I love the Cookie Monster very much.

 

[packrat]

Miss Piggy is Muppet Show, Cookie Monster is Sesame Street! I used to laugh so hard when he would nomnomnomnom cookies and crumbs would be flying everywhere.

 

[arkieb1]

Deb, are you still interested in this pronoun debate?? If so, read on. You told me I was wrong. If I am wrong I'd love to know, because then I will have learnt something new. But I think I'm right, for the following reasons.

So, the sentences for debate are these:

"Who makes the rules?"
"Well, me, of course!" - said by Ksinger

You said the sentence should have been: "Well, I, of course."

That's only correct if you insert a verb. So you would say "Well, I do, of course!" but "Well, me, of course!"

I read it and I went it should be "Well, I do, of course." I also thought it could be "Well me, of course!" as well as the comma after the "well". Unless you are pausing after the "well" for dramatic effect, which also works if we are splitting hairs about it.

I used to be an English/History teacher btw.

 

[dragonfly411]

Smith
Here's where I find your rule confusing. Would you say "I make the rules." or would you say "Me make the rules"?

Hell, I can't even decide where to put the question mark.

Tricky tricky.

Dragonfly, the question mark goes inside the quotation mark.

Thank you Zoe. It is the one grammar point that never wants to stick with me for some reason, and only for certain things. I always put the period in, and a comma, but in cases like this I'm all like "well I'm stating two sentences and asking a question about them, so which way would I do it?" Now I know. YAY!

 

[dragonfly411]

Ahh, Miss Piggy. Now there's a girl with standards.

Or is that the Muppet Show? Which one is the Cookie Monster from? I love the Cookie Monster very much.

The Cookie Monster is from Sesame Street. The Muppets are Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Animal, Scooter, Skeeter, Beaker etc.
Sesame Streets characters fall in line with the Muppets. They were Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Snuffy, Oscar, Elmo, Bert, Ernie etc.

And if we want to really consider Muppets, they were an entire generation of television/movie characters which were actually puppets, and included films like Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Muppet movies, the Sesame Street Movies, Fraggle Rock.

 

[lovebug1031]

Ahh, Miss Piggy. Now there's a girl with standards.

Or is that the Muppet Show? Which one is the Cookie Monster from? I love the Cookie Monster very much.

The Cookie Monster is from Sesame Street. The Muppets are Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Animal, Scooter, Skeeter, Beaker etc.
Sesame Streets characters fall in line with the Muppets. They were Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Snuffy, Oscar, Elmo, Bert, Ernie etc.

And if we want to really consider Muppets, they were an entire generation of television/movie characters which were actually puppets, and included films like Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Muppet movies, the Sesame Street Movies, Fraggle Rock.

Ah, yes! My favorite Christmas movie of all time, the one that I seem to be the only one that's ever seen, Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas!


related - I struggle with that and who - in my sentence above, should it have been as stated, or should "that's" have been replaced with whose?

 

[Smith1942]

Smith
Here's where I find your rule confusing. Would you say "I make the rules." or would you say "Me make the rules"?

Hell, I can't even decide where to put the question mark.

Tricky tricky.

Dragonfly, the question mark goes inside the quotation mark.

Thank you Zoe. It is the one grammar point that never wants to stick with me for some reason, and only for certain things. I always put the period in, and a comma, but in cases like this I'm all like "well I'm stating two sentences and asking a question about them, so which way would I do it?" Now I know. YAY!

Dragonfly, Zoe is wrong in this instance. (Sorry, Zoe!) To put the question mark inside the quotes makes the quote a question. And the quote was not "Me makes the rules?" The quote is a statement, not a question, but to put the question mark inside the quote marks turns it into a question.

I posted above with the Chicago rule and the Grammar Girl rule that says the question mark belongs outside the quote unless the question mark is part of the quote. Like this example:

Which Shakespeare character said, "All the world's a stage"?

Now, if you put the question mark inside the quote marks, the character would be asking a question as to whether all the world was a stage.

 

[Smith1942]

Smith
Here's where I find your rule confusing. Would you say "I make the rules." or would you say "Me make the rules"?

Hell, I can't even decide where to put the question mark.

Tricky tricky.

Dragonfly, the question mark goes inside the quotation mark.

I think it depends where you live. UK and US have different rules regarding this issue.

Thanks, Missy. After I posted, I looked it up and I see differing opinions. I tried to delete my post but it was too late.

There are differing opinions regarding the location of certain punctuation marks, but question marks isn't one of them.

There are US/UK differences in where to place commas and periods, but the treatment of question marks is the same in terms of quotations. In neither system is it correct to put a question mark as part of the quotation when it isn't.

To borrow a Chicago example:

Which of Shakespeare's characters said, "All the world's a stage"?

The question mark is not part of the Shakespeare quotation so it goes outside the marks. To put it inside is to misquote Shakespeare. And "Me make the rules" was never a question, so again the question mark goes outside the quotation marks. This is the same in the US and UK.

ETA: Someone posted a Grammar Girl link above. On the first page it discusses how there are placement differences with commas and periods, and on the second page it says this about question marks:

"When combining exclamation points and question marks with quotation marks, however, Americans follow the same logical system as the British. Where you place the other marks relative to the quotation mark depends on the context of the quotation."

Dragonfly, see above. I'd hate you to go around putting question marks inside the quotes and turning statements into questions all over the shop because you were told something wrong. That can lose you marks in exams - and possibly make you look bad at work or whatever!

In the example you were confused about, the question is YOUR question. The quotation contains isn't a question, it is a statement. Since the question is yours, the question mark goes outside the quote marks.

Sorry for all the bolding - I don't mean it to look aggressive, it's just that there's a lot of dense text and I'm highlighting the important bits.

 

[zoebartlett]

Thanks for correcting me, Smith! I'm sure I've written it both ways, so it's good to know I was right at least part of the time.

 

[Smith1942]

Sorry Zoe. I was brought up with the maxim "It's rude to contradict" but then I thought it wasn't fair to Dragonfly not to tell her!

You would put the question mark inside the quotes if the quoted material was a question, yes.

Like this:

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" ........because the quotation itself is a question - that is, Juliet is asking a question about Romeo.

Sorry, I'm probably hammering the point home a bit too much now!

 

[Smith1942]

Deb, are you still interested in this pronoun debate?? If so, read on. You told me I was wrong. If I am wrong I'd love to know, because then I will have learnt something new. But I think I'm right, for the following reasons.

So, the sentences for debate are these:

"Who makes the rules?"
"Well, me, of course!" - said by Ksinger

You said the sentence should have been: "Well, I, of course."

That's only correct if you insert a verb. So you would say "Well, I do, of course!" but "Well, me, of course!"

I read it and I went it should be "Well, I do, of course." I also thought it could be "Well me, of course!" as well as the comma after the "well". Unless you are pausing after the "well" for dramatic effect, which also works if we are splitting hairs about it.

I used to be an English/History teacher btw.

Hi, Arkie! Is this a fun debate, or what? I'm tragic, I know.

So, Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) says there is no such thing in writing as a "breath comma" (same thing as pausing for dramatic effect - although, of course, you might do that when speaking.) They also recommend only putting a comma after an introductory phrase of four letters or more. CMS also says that in this case "Well" is a useless interjection and doesn't mean anything grammatically. So according to CMS the first comma shouldn't be there. Personally, I think random breath commas can contribute positively to the rhythm of a sentence, even if Chicago doesn't agree with it!

 

[dragonfly411]

Thank you Smith! That is what I would have thought to start with and why I was so confused. But then my question is, would you end the second quotation with a comma, or a period to end the sentence?

 

[AGBF]

You said the sentence should have been: "Well, I, of course."

That's only correct if you insert a verb. So you would say "Well, I do, of course!" but "Well, me, of course!"

I read it and I went it should be "Well, I do, of course." I also thought it could be "Well me, of course!"

(snip)

Yes, arkieb, my point has been, all along, that traditionally the verb is implied. So, traditionally, one reads the "I" as "I do".

I understand that in modern English it is not only acceptable, but perhaps preferable, to say, "me", however. I did correct ksinger, but only to tease her with stuffy grammar and a double entendre as stated above in this thread. I would not have attempted the joke with someone who was not a grammar buff and with hindsight I am certainly very sorry I attempted it with ksinger.

I apologize for being insensitive, ksinger. I didn't realize that other posters might think I was publicly correcting you or that you might feel I was doing so.

Deb

 

[AGBF]

By the way, ksinger, your little witticism at the end of your posting about the grace of God did not go unnoticed. I appreciated it.

Deb

 

[arkieb1]

Deb, are you still interested in this pronoun debate?? If so, read on. You told me I was wrong. If I am wrong I'd love to know, because then I will have learnt something new. But I think I'm right, for the following reasons.

So, the sentences for debate are these:

"Who makes the rules?"
"Well, me, of course!" - said by Ksinger

You said the sentence should have been: "Well, I, of course."

That's only correct if you insert a verb. So you would say "Well, I do, of course!" but "Well, me, of course!"

I read it and I went it should be "Well, I do, of course." I also thought it could be "Well me, of course!" as well as the comma after the "well". Unless you are pausing after the "well" for dramatic effect, which also works if we are splitting hairs about it.

I used to be an English/History teacher btw.

Hi, Arkie! Is this a fun debate, or what? I'm tragic, I know.

So, Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) says there is no such thing in writing as a "breath comma" (same thing as pausing for dramatic effect - although, of course, you might do that when speaking.) They also recommend only putting a comma after an introductory phrase of four letters or more. CMS also says that in this case "Well" is a useless interjection and doesn't mean anything grammatically. So according to CMS the first comma shouldn't be there. Personally, I think random breath commas can contribute positively to the rhythm of a sentence, even if Chicago doesn't agree with it!

I think all the drama queens out there would say banish the Chicago Manual to the bin. I bet if Shakespeare was around today he would not only pause for dramatic effect but he would embrace texting speech patterns as well. The guy was cool for his day after all. And I am an Aussie, so we not only pause for dramatic effect, we chuck in Aussie slang for special effects!!!!