Speaking of Grammar...

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

mrua7 posted an interesting bit on the usage of the words further and farther.  I think it's easily one of the most misused words, further.  I cringe when people say that they went further than someone else, or they're going further.  Further isn't about distance, and if you're interested in some quick insights visit her page to read about it.

That leads me to the personal pronoun debacle.  I know it's been accepted as usage, but it is wrong to say 'Illya was with Napoleon and I on that trip'.  That is the same as saying Illya was with I.  Obviously incorrect, right?  So why do so many people insist on saying it improperly?

Television and movies don't help, the screenwriters are apparently ignorant of that element of grammar, the usage of this most obvious error is commonplace.  I have even heard Mr. McCallum make that mistake, and others of British origins as well.  It seems to not help that the speaker comes from the motherland of the language, just listen to it on almost any television production or interview.

Like so many things, fear seems to be the motivator.  People have become so accustomed to trying to avoid appearing ignorant, like people who might routinely say 'me and Jim Bob went shopping', that a paranoia of the use of the word me in a sentence has paralyzed the intellect.  Here's a quick summary.

Whereas the misuse of personal pronouns continues to vex the English language,  ain't became a type of socially accepted shortcut that has since become associated with lower socio-economic conditions. (Article is here.)  It seems slightly less egregious to me, however, than the commonly accepted phrase 'aren't I?'. Are not I? Is that something we would say? Am I not is the proper phrasing, but the laziness of speakers instead distills three words into a meaningless aren't I.  Same with the use of they when he or she would be correct.  People routinely refer to a singular he or she as the plural they.
Who has the winning ticket? They are lucky.

These are particular to my own sense of good writing habits, as well as speech.  I am not flawless concerning grammar, and thankful for every bit of help that my editing software gives me as I write.  But I do think we should make every effort to put it on paper correctly, not hedging on proper usage if we can avoid it.  I know I'm not alone, there are people in this community who are well versed in the language and the use of it.

We have a forum here, and the ability to sow into each other's lives and talents with our own observations and discoveries.  If you have a grammar issue you'd like to address, let's see it.  Post a new article or reply in the comments.

Comments

[alynwa.livejournal.com]

Ah, Glenna, you and I share the same pet peeve. I hate when people say "I" when it should be "me." I am not grammatically perfect, but I'm grammatically great and figuring out whether the pronoun is being used correctly is so easy. "You and I" equals "we" and "You and me" equals "us."


"It's me" in answer to "Who is it?" is colloquially accepted as correct as the truly correct "It is I" now sounds overly formal and pretentious as does the equally correct "She is taller than I (am understood)" as opposed to "She's taller than me." Interestingly, the answer "This is she" in answer to "May I speak with Susan?" is not perceived as sounding snooty.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

I remember how excited I was when I learned that yes and no are for questions framed negatively ("Was that not a lovely dinner?") and yea and nay are for questions framed positively ("Did you enjoy the dinner?")

I have no idea whether that's true anymore; I just love the specificity of it. That ability to account for just about any contingency is one of the reasons I love English.

[alynwa.livejournal.com]

I used to love diagramming sentences; it allows one to see how nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. work to put a sentence together and in my mind, it makes learning grammar easier because you see it and how it fits. Sadly, it hasn't been taught in years.