Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: TopAce on January 11, 2011, 07:12:57 am
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The Question
We have sentences like these in English:
1) John and I went to the cinema.
2) John and me went to the cinema.
The difference is one pronoun - an I and a me - and both sentences mean the same. Both are used, but there's debate about which one is "more" correct.
I'd like to make a survey here at HLP. What do you think about the two sentences above? Which one is correct/preferable, and why? Also if you decide to post, please indicate if you're a native speaker or not.
My Comment (non-native speaker)
I personally prefer 1) because "I went to the cinema" is a valid sentence, while "Me went to the cinema" is not. John is simply an additional agent in the sentence, so there's no (grammatical) reason to change the nominative I to the accusative me. However, I don't mind hearing 2), because I'm aware that it's widely used.
In addition, I was taught to use 2) because "it was nicer," but as soon as I started to view this sentence pair more critically, I started to prefer 1).
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The first one is definitely correct, the second would be more correct if it read.... "Me and John went to the cinema" not "John and me", but still the preferred option in the native English language would be the first.
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'John and I' is the standard English version, you might get away with 'John and myself', but, strictly speaking 'John and me' would be considered passable, but wrong.
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I'm not sure if I count as a native-speaker. I've been away from the states for 6 years and my English has suffered.
But I'd definitely choose 1) over 2).
Personally I haven't heard 2) used too much with native-speakers.
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i usually go with 2, even though its grammatically incorrect.
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A lot of people say 2, but it's definitely incorrect, for exactly the reason you stated (about the proper sentence using I).
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Grammar is not decided by popular vote.
1.
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languages evolve by people not adhering to the strict code of grammar.
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'I' is in the English subjective case (nominative case for everyone else). The way this becomes confusing is when somebody decides they are smarter than everyone and says "*he went to the movies with John and I" - thinking they are being correct, and probably acting smug about it. In that case, you would use "John and me" because you use the objective case (accusative for other languages) after a preposition.
So you'll hear both 'John and I' and "John and me", but they aren't interchangeable.
Colloquial English likes to use 'me' instead of I, but it also likes to say 'me and John'.
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Leaning towards 1, I don't follow a particular rule when speaking/writing English sentences... from the start I've always been repeating the sentence to myself and then choosing the one that I feel to correct.
..And now you know why my english sucks so bad, sorry to make your eyes hurt :(
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'I' is in the English subjective case (nominative case for everyone else). The way this becomes confusing is when somebody decides they are smarter than everyone and says "*he went to the movies with John and I" - thinking they are being correct, and probably acting smug about it. In that case, you would use "John and me" because you use the objective case (accusative for other languages) after a preposition.
So you'll hear both 'John and I' and "John and me", but they aren't interchangeable.
Colloquial English likes to use 'me' instead of I, but it also likes to say 'me and John'.
Actually, under classical English, 'Me and John' is considered bad manners, but it's a very old rule.
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It is (and I was taught that growing up as well, always put yourself last) but it doesn't change the fact that it's commonly spoken.
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Agreed, I don't even know if that rule is taught any more.
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I'm a native speaker. I consider the first correct and the second incorrect, and I use the first.
I say "It's me" although I consider that incorrect, because it sounds better.
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1 is grammatically correct, though around here it's much more common to hear "me and John". i probably use that one more often too, but "John and me" sounds terrible to me.
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Labelling either one of these incorrect if used in speech (including written dialogue) as opposed to text is a sign of terrible grammatical pendancy and should result in a death sentence.
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God forbid there should be rules or anything :p
Edit: And just to clarify, yes, I know what you mean, when presented as dialogue, anything goes ;)
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I say "It's me" although I consider that incorrect, because it sounds better.
That's pretty much my only exception too. I know "It's me" is grammatically incorrect, but "It's I" sounds nothing short of unnatural. :p
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I say "It's me" although I consider that incorrect, because it sounds better.
That's pretty much my only exception too. I know "It's me" is grammatically incorrect, but "It's I" sounds nothing short of unnatural. :p
But "It is I" sounds stylish, because Dak'kon in Planescape: Torment said that.
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It's probably better not to abbreviate 'It is' in those cases, in England we still use 'It is I', though more as a sort of Comedy thing, and we even use the much more archaic "'Tis I" as well, ('Tis being an extremely old abbreviation of 'It is')
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Worth noting that a lot of nitpicky English grammar rules were introduced in the 18th century as a result of grammarians trying to make English more "perfect" like Latin and have nothing to do with what English speakers actually use. People have been trying to correct their "bad" habits ever since. English has a history (when I say history, I'm referring to Old and Middle English, and stuff that was carried over into Early Modern) of using different cases than a Latin translation.
It's the difference between prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. Prescriptive grammar is where somebody writes the rules based on whatever the hell he wants; descriptive grammar is based on what speakers actually use. The desire for English speakers to sound educated has made prescriptive grammar king, although it's a relatively recent invention in English.
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I don't think it's so much a desire to sound educated, I think it's just a question of how easily the rules settle in, I was always quite an avid reader from a very young age and carried that with me, I cringe everytime someone says 'Axe' instead of 'Ask' for example, despite the fact that it's becoming more and more common in everyday English, I don't mind language drift, I use colloquialisms now that I didn't use 5 years ago, but when it comes to pronunciation, that's a lot harder for me to deal with.
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The original Old English verb was 'acsion' (hard c) and the two sounds switched in Middle English (as well as infinitives becoming two part and dropping the Germanic '-on'); now they're switching back. :P
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Personally, I think I'd like English better if there was only one pronoun for each person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and the singular and plural of all three).
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I don't doubt most languages have drifted all over the place over the years, and I'm in no way saying that language should be nailed down, but the fact is that a lot of language drift took place because of a lack of anywhere to pin it down, that's partly the role the Oxford English Dictionary created for itself, it was also possibly something to do with it's similarity to the word 'action' that put it out of service.
If may be a simple outgrowth of English, but the spelling hasn't changed, which actually serves not to make the language more accessible, but actually to make it even less so.
Edit: As an aside, one thing that does always occur to me is why is it always English that's attacked when people try to preserve the language, many other countries have entire Government departments dedicated to preserving the language (France and Wales come to mind), and yet the moment someone mentions that a certain form of English is bad, it's language drift and English speakers are just being stroppy and not keeping up with the times. It just seems to be an odd stigma that hangs over the English language.
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@Scotty: There's a barrier island creole (in the Carolinas maybe) that uses them indiscriminately (I think they normally use 'she') because the African language that's part of the creole didn't distinguish pronoun gender. I'll have to do some digging in books I've got lying around to find it though.
It's possible. . .English already got rid of its informal pronouns (thou, thy, etc.). However with all the feminist grammar stuff drawing a load of attention to the gender specific pronouns, it's unlikely to change.
@Flipside (who posted while I was typing this): The OED exists to catalog words, nothing more. They have etymologies for all their words. You're right though, in that printing did a LOT for the standardization of English. Before Caxton started printing English stuff, there was effectively no standardization (except for West Saxon Old English, which dominated literature before 1066). However printing can also cause problems of its own. English 'gost' and 'goul' became 'ghost' and 'ghoul' due to a Dutch printing error that caught favor as a better looking spelling.
For your perusal and general interest: (it also appears there was some dialectical variation of 'ask' in OE as well, however in the bit of Wessex Old English I've studied the 'aks' form is more common).
From the OED:
Ask:
Etymology: Common Germanic: Old English áscian was cognate with Old Frisian âskia, Old Saxon êscôn, êscan, Old High German eiscôn, Middle High German eischen, German heischen, Old Germanic *aiskôjan: compare Sanskrit ish to seek, ichchhā wish. The original long á gave regularly the Middle English (Kentish) ōxi; but elsewhere was shortened before the two consonants, giving Middle English a, and, in some dialects, e. The result of these vowel changes, and of the Old English metathesis asc-, acs-, was that Middle English had the types ōx, ax, ex, ask, esk, ash, esh, ass, ess. The true representative of the orig. áscian was the s.w. and w.midl. ash, esh, also written esse (compare æsceash n.1, wæsc(e)anwash n.), now quite lost. Acsian, axian, survived in ax, down to nearly 1600 the regular literary form, and still used everywhere in midl. and southern dialects, though supplanted in standard English by ask, originally the northern form. Already in 15th cent. the latter was reduced dialectally to asse, past tense ast, still current dialectally.
Action:
Etymology: < Anglo-Norman accioun, acciun, actione, actioun, Anglo-Norman and Middle French accion, Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French action (of a person) performance of deeds, activity (1223 in Old French), exercise of a claim before a judge, pursual of a lawsuit, legal proceedings (1260), way of proceeding (14th cent.), effect, influence (1426), public discourse (a1564), (in drama or oratory) gesture (a1592), operation of a physical or immaterial agent (1646), events occurring in a play (1660), financial title representing a share of capital (1669; 12th cent. in Old French as acciun), in Anglo-Norman also (in law) matter in dispute (13th cent.), right to bring a legal action (first half of the 14th cent.), and its etymon classical Latin actiōn-, āctiō activity, doing, act, deed, dramatic incident, proposal, measure, policy, (of an orator) delivery, speech, speaking, legal process, suit, right to bring a suit, plea, statement of claim, in post-classical Latin also conduct (6th cent.), canon of the Mass (7th cent.), thanksgiving (from 8th cent. in British sources in actio gratiarum; also 1244 in a British source as actio), mystery play (c1225 in a British source), record of proceedings (16th cent. in a British source) < āct- past participial stem of agere to do (see act v.) + -iō-ion suffix1. Compare Old Occitan accion, acihon (1385), Catalan acció (14th cent.), Spanish acción (c1250), Portuguese ação (1257), Italian azione (a1306).
EDIT: So, possible that 'action' influenced 'ask', but hard to prove either way.
You guys get to ramble all day about your engineering and physics and maths, I'm taking my turn. :D
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:lol: No problem, there's no doubting who's the expert on this :)
I suppose the real concern is that the 'official' spelling is still 'Ask', that may change over time though, but I think it's less likely now that it was 100 years ago.
Interesting about the words Ghost and Ghoul though, didn't know about that, makes you wonder how many other 'silent' letters appeared in that fashion.
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I think a lot of good could come out of a methodological cleaning of the language, straighten out all the inconsistencies and special cases.
mouses should be acceptable plural form of mouse.
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If I recall correctly, it's easier for some people to pronounce the 'k' before the 's'. So, it IS a result of people being lazy, as is all language drift. :)
OE: mus is singular, OE mues (German ü). Since that vowel no longer exists in English, it was raised to an 'i' (for unrelated reasons the 'oo' changed to 'ow'). I've actually always used 'mouses' as plural of a computer mouse; not sure where I got that from though.
There have been a lot of academics looking at standardizing the English language, because it's SO etymologically diverse. It'd be a VERY tough thing to get people to use though, and for your effort you might as well teach them Esperanto. I know the Brits will hate it, but Webster's spelling changes were in large part an attempt to make the spelling match the pronunciation (of course three hundred years later and it's wrong again). It would certainly aid in teaching others the language.
EDIT: Bobboau, that also opens up the can of worms of who creates language? Is it a community trying to communicate with itself, or is it something that's imposed on people? A lot of people would argue that the speakers are the final authority on what's correct.
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well, there are currently authority figures who have a written 'correct' version that they are imposing on the people, I propose that these people try to make there version more logically consistent or in the least don't make such logical inconsistencies mandatory and allow 'mouses' to be accepted when you write a paper for an ivy league university.
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I've actually never heard of "John and me" as a subject before, and I only hear "Me and John" is on TV. I didn't realize it was common.
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Worth noting that a lot of nitpicky English grammar rules were introduced in the 18th century as a result of grammarians trying to make English more "perfect" like Latin and have nothing to do with what English speakers actually use.
IIRC a lot of the nonsense people think are rules of grammar come from that too. Stuff like not splitting infinitives or not ending sentences with a preposition.
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Wait, you mean it is okay to split infinitives?
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Wait, you mean it is okay to split infinitives?
In English, sure.
In Latin, they'll set you on fire and dump what's left into the Marianas Trench.
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What, is it even possible in Latin? Amare is one word.
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That's the point and why it's so funny. They brought the "rule" that you couldn't split an infinitive over from Latin, which was dumb because there was no logic in applying that to a two piece infinitive.
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Wait, you mean it is okay to split infinitives?
Sometimes it's not worth the effort to try to snootily explain why you're actually right to whomever says it.:P
"Pretending" you know good grammar just keeps you more friends.
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That's the point and why it's so funny. They brought the "rule" that you couldn't split an infinitive over from Latin, which was dumb because there was no logic in applying that to a two piece infinitive.
Ohhhh...
/me bonks himself on the head.
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Just so you guys know, on the Forum Index, this thread shows up as "Re: Quick survet - prono..."
I thought I'd let you know how disappointed I am.
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...or not ending sentences with a preposition.
I seem to distinctly remember being taught in grade school English class that a preposition used at the end of a sentence was essentially functioning as an adverb and so was fine to use. That's why I've always been puzzled when I see people throwing fits over them. :p
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Because in sentences like "Whom are you talking to?" it obscures the fact that "to" has the object "Whom." In that case I'm pretty sure it's not an adverb either, since they don't have objects.
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Just because our grammatical rules are being forgotten left and right doesn't make common usages any less wrong.
It's John and I.
Whenever you use <name> and I/me, you should be able to replace it with "I/me" and still have the sentence work.
I went to the cinema. Works
Me went to the cinema. Sounds stupid. This is why you can't say "John and me went to the cinema".
Batutta robbed me. Works. (Batutta robbed John and me.)
Batutta robbed I. yeahno. This is why you can't say "Batutta robbed John and I".
Then again, those are rules intended more for written language. In spoken language, no one really cares about most of the finer rules.
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Yeah, I've long thought that (for instance) the sentence "It is I" doesn't mean what it says anymore. Really it means something like "It is I (literally) and also I'm being flippant right now by being ridiculously strict with my English." Even if that's not what you mean when you say it, that's what I'll understand, so better to use incorrect grammar that tells me what you mean.
Or something along those lines, if that makes sense.
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Reminds me of alot. I love alots a lot. They're so cute!
Edit: Fsck. The one time al0t is used correctly, the board decides to 'fix' it for me :(
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Alot. Ha!
Also the linky (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html).
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Just because our grammatical rules are being forgotten left and right doesn't make common usages any less wrong.
But what if some of those rules were written by a bunch of elitist douchebags who wanted everyone to learn Latin in the first place? Who's to tell me that I can't use double negatives because 'logically' two negatives negate each other, thus while I think I'm using "I ain't doin' nothin'" as "I'm really doing nothing", THEY know better that I mean "I'm doing something". :P
And run on sentences are very Germanic...
EDIT: According to 18th century logical grammarians, this sentence:
There never was no man nowhere so virtuous.
Means there was a never a man, anywhere, so virtuous. Chaucer means there's a VERY virtuous man around.
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One structure that drives me up the wall, though I think it's actually considered acceptable, is "alright." I don't know what it is, but I can't stand to use that myself and always go with "all right."
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Amusingly enough, just out of curiosity I looked 'alright' up on the OED. Came up as "form" of "all right" but also as a separate adverb:
obs.
Just, exactly.
OE Rule St. Benet (Corpus Cambr.) lxxii. 131 Ealswa yfel biternesse anda and æfst ascyred [read ascyreð] fram Gode‥, ealrihte swa god anda and anhering ascyreð fram synna leahtrum.
lOE Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Laud) (Peterborough contin.) anno 1127, Þær he wunede eallriht swa drane doð on hiue.
c1175 Lamb. Hom. 133 Alrihtes swa alse þe wise teolie‥nimeð ȝeme of twam þingen.
a1250 (1200) Ancrene Riwle (Nero) (1952) 40, & alriht so of ðe oðre wittes.
It appears there is considerable historical predecent. :)
EDIT: OE - Old English and lOE is Late Old English if you didn't catch it.
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Sometimes it's not worth the effort to try to snootily explain why you're actually right to whomever says it.:P
Given that they've almost always just snootily explained it to someone else, I give them both barrels. :p
If you're gonna grammar Nazi at least get it correct. :p