[mycroft]

BunnyGo, on 2012-August-31, 17:04, said:

All one must do is notice the difference between subject and object--not memorize rules.

Well, that and knowing that linking verbs exist, and which ones are likely to be so, and realize that linking verbs link two words of the same class - subject and subject. Not exactly "just notice".

What *happens* is that people get told "it is 'It is I', not 'It's me'" - and not *why*. So they start doing it (especially when they don't want to sound common, because we all know that "it's me" is perfectly acceptable to hoi polloi); and then when another verb comes up, they don't know which way to do it (again, because they don't know *why*, with "to be" in most situations, one uses two subjects), so they correct in the same way (and get it wrong; thus "hyper-correction").

[TimG]

One that has been bothering me recently is:

"You do that better than me".

[kenberg]

TimG, on 2012-September-04, 10:38, said:

One that has been bothering me recently is:

"You do that better than me".

Yes, but for me this comes under the heading of "There but for the grace of God go I" (or maybe "go me"?). "You prefer him to me" is correct, "You did that better then me" is incorrect, but I can understand the slip, I might well make such an error myself.

Many, many years back a friend signed my high school yearbook "To Ken, the kid to who I owe my English credit to". He was joking, but we can all slip up.

I just don't get "ask Ann and I". I can't see any reason, in grammar or in logic, for it and it is not the sort of phrasing that you learn on the street. Not on the streets of my childhood anyway. Such an error, and I still think that it is an error, has to be learned. Which of course is the point of the rwbarton post on hypercorrection, and Helene's post about similar errors in Danish.

I am still struck by the acceptance, in Barton's reference, of it based on "heard constantly in the conversation of people whose status as speakers of Standard English is clear" . People who should know better apparently don't know better so, not wanting to embarrass them, we will call it right?

I lack both the inclination and the grammatical skills to be a fussbudget, but this one really grabbed me.

[semeai]

mycroft, on 2012-August-31, 16:29, said:

However, it is "it is Ann and I", because it is "it is I".

kenberg, on 2012-August-31, 17:26, said:

"It is I" seems natural enough to me. I think "It is me" was and is common enough to not sound weird, just wrong. So "It is Ann and I" seems equally easy.

There's a descriptivist argument that the "oblique case" (slightly more general term than "objective case") [includes me, us, etc] can be used in the complement of a copula: "It's me." See the wikipedia link in the previous sentence, and also the ones for grammatical case and English personal pronouns.

TimG, on 2012-September-04, 10:38, said:

One that has been bothering me recently is:

"You do that better than me".

This is the disjunctive case ["stressed" case]; think "moi" in French. See disjunctive pronoun. It's less controversial than using the objective/oblique case in the complement of a copula, which is arguably a special case of this (see the wikipedia article).

[BunnyGo]

"Hopefully people will learn to stop mixing up adverbs and adjectives too," he said hopefully. That one drives me nuts also, and NOBODY gets it correct.

[gwnn]

BunnyGo, on 2012-September-04, 13:03, said:

"Hopefully people will learn to stop mixing up adverbs and adjectives too," he said hopefully. That one drives me nuts also, and NOBODY gets it correct.

And sentence adverbs, right?

[TimG]

BunnyGo, on 2012-September-04, 13:03, said:

"Hopefully people will learn to stop mixing up adverbs and adjectives too," he said hopefully. That one drives me nuts also, and NOBODY gets it correct.

Unfortunately, those of us who don't like this use of "hopefully" are likely on the losing side.

[y66]

TimG, on 2012-September-04, 13:54, said:

Unfortunately, those of us we don't like this use of "hopefully" are likely on the losing side.

Not that AP has the last word, but they did decide in April of this year to endorse the use of hopefully to modify an entire sentence.

[luke warm]

kenberg, on 2012-August-31, 10:29, said:

I certainly do simply assume exactly that. I was taught that "If you ask Ann and I" is grammatically equivalent to "If you ask I".

The possibility that some authorities advocate otherwise is news to me! Anyone else? I'm never too old to learn, but this is a shock to me. It is even a shock to I.

lol... fwiw, i agree 100% with you... you and i are in agreement, more or less

[semeai]

Honestly, these sentence adverbs are just text-based emoticons. Fortunately, I don't really object to that.

Surprisingly, putting one in front of each sentence is reminiscent of HK-47 from KOTOR. Admittedly, he used "Noun:" instead of "Adverb,", but the effect is very similar.

[kenberg]

luke warm, on 2012-September-04, 15:31, said:

lol... fwiw, i agree 100% with you... you and i are in agreement, more or less

100% agreement, more or less, is an interesting concept. Especially the "more".

This thread has been an eye opener for me. In elementary school I learned what I would now describe as "Practical Grammar". I was taught to speak in such a way that I would not embarrass the family. Eight parts of speech, Rules such as "ask Ann and I" is equivalent to "ask I" and therefore wrong. When I got to high school I tried to fit in with my new classmates by using double negatives and saying f*** a lot but I soon got past that. I learned a bit more about grammar in Spanish class, but that was it. English class was mostly reading, and mostly I didn't do it.

If I am ever given the opportunity for time travel, I want to check out my memories of my eighth grade class (no, it is not first on my list but still..). I believe every one of us could handle simple grammar, and we could all compute percentages and such. We did not know the sort of advanced grammar discussed here, and we did not know algebra. Now it is very different. Some learn algebra in seventh grade or even earlier, and their grammar is impeccable. The rest, a much larger group, seem to know almost nothing. I liked it the old way. Algebra was easy when I was 13. I am not so sure it would have been when I was 10.

This thread has been far more interesting to me than I expected when I first posted.

[BunnyGo]

kenberg, on 2012-September-04, 17:10, said:

When I got to high school I tried to fit in with my new classmates by using double negatives and saying f*** a lot but I soon got past that.

These are two things which do not bother me. I used to mind double negatives until I read the sentence, "She couldn't not run." It makes different logical sense than "She could run," and conveys extra information without being grammatically incorrect.

Swearing can also be done with very effective use while being grammatically correct to convey meaning in a unique and interesting way. I'll refrain from presenting examples here.

[Quantumcat]

BunnyGo, on 2012-September-04, 13:03, said:

"Hopefully people will learn to stop mixing up adverbs and adjectives too," he said hopefully. That one drives me nuts also, and NOBODY gets it correct.

I only ever hear adverbs and adjectives get mixed up on American TV shows. For example "You did good" or, "That went real quick". If someone without an American accent said it, it would sound really odd. The hopefully thing though, you hear that all over the place.

[Vampyr]

kenberg, on 2012-September-01, 11:01, said:

she was getting very tired of me saying "Ruth ask them this, Ruth ask them that".

Helpful hint: use a possessive pronoun with a gerund.

[gordontd]

Quantumcat, on 2012-September-04, 19:02, said:

"You did good"

That one has been adopted quite widely over here, but I have the impression it's quite deliberate slang rather than being due to any problem distinguishing adjectives from adverbs.

[helene_t]

rwbarton, on 2012-August-31, 09:32, said:

The name for this phenomenon is "hypercorrection": http://en.wikipedia....Hypercorrection

Thanks for that link, it is a funny read. Who would know that "schedule" is a hypercorrection, it "should" be "scedule".

[squealydan]

Ken should not visit New Zealand. "Between you and I" is absolute standard usage here and the decline started at least 25 years ago, as I can recall my university flatmates using it. At the time I suspected they thought it sounded posh. Using "and me" in these situations has become so rare that whenever I use it, I half-expect to be corrected.

Even worse, the opposite is starting to invade - object pronouns appearing in place of subjects. It is not at all uncommon to hear people say "her and I were talking last night". It sounds so ridiculously unnatural to me that I can't imagine how people started to use it, but many of my colleagues have abandoned "he" and "she" in these situations. I expect it to make it onto tv and radio fairly soon.

And the word "good" has won the battle over "well". How are you? Good!

Strangely, "hopefully" has never bothered me. It is so uncommon for me to want to use the word in its original sense, or even to see it used anywhere in such a way, that its current usage seems like the only one I've ever known. So I guess I sometimes fall into the "if it's how it's used, then it's correct" camp.

Anyway, back to your original post - isn't the ability to mangle the English language a pre-requisite for anyone seeking leadership of the Republican Party?

[PassedOut]

squealydan, on 2012-September-05, 06:26, said:

Anyway, back to your original post - isn't the ability to mangle the English language a pre-requisite for anyone seeking leadership of the Republican Party?

Some of the very same grating mistakes came from the mouths of speakers at the Democratic convention last night.

[squealydan]

PassedOut, on 2012-September-05, 06:38, said:

Some of the very same grating mistakes came from the mouths of speakers at the Democratic convention last night.

Sorry, I'm a long way from the US. All I know is Letterman's "great moments in Presidential speeches" hasn't been aired too often in the past three years...

[kenberg]

Vampyr, on 2012-September-05, 03:39, said:

Helpful hint: use a possessive pronoun with a gerund.

Correction noted. Physician heal thyself and all that!