Remember a few weeks ago when some of us spotted an unusual expression in Parade Magazine? The cover story, about a female football coach identified the woman as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the only\u00e2\u20ac\u009d such coaches. The issue was whether \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can ever be an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153only.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A column followed on that and other strange uses of language. Well, the same publication, Parade, chose a strange way of expressing things at least once before \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or so I thought. Back in the days when popular heartthrobs Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were courting, Parade published a cover story titled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Debbie and Me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Immediately, I double-checked the title, read through the entire article and puzzled over how in the world a copy editor could let such a thing slip: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Debbie and Me\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d such temerity, and such butchering of basic grammar rules in English. It just had to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Debbie and I.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I would have e-mailed Parade\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s editors right away, but the Internet hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been invented yet. In fact, most mail got around with a 4-cent stamp. That was in 1954.<\/p>\n
One of the more common misusages of the language comes from confusion of pronouns. Somewhere in the womb of time, it was written that thou shalt always struggle with personal pronouns. If there is any form of a linking verb (is, are, am, was, were, etc.), we use the nominative, I, he, she, it. The rest of the time (for the most part), we use the objective form, me, him, her, it, them. And usually, me, him, her, them and it appear at the end of the sentence.<\/p>\n
The Parade Magazine headline indeed was correct. Apparently, the implied meaning was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This article is about Debbie and me (not I).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when we have more than one pronoun to wrestle with, we forget which one to use at the end of the sentence. So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s common to hear, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They gave the money to she and I.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They gave it to she? To I? In cases like this, we can cite a bevy of rules, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sometimes simpler to ask ourselves what we would say if only one pronoun were involved. Or better yet, omit the pronoun altogether and name names.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m acquainted with a number of Buckeyes whose Ohio influence has changed their version of the English language. Some in-laws take freedoms with possessives as well as pronouns, compounding the above issue considerably.<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say, for example, that two people own a car. We could say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That car belongs to Frank and me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or we could say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Frank\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and my car.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But what I hear \u00e2\u20ac\u201d something I never expected \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Frank and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Now the first-person pronoun also becomes a possessive.<\/p>\n
Yet, unless we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re soul mates of Koran-loathing Florida Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach church, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It gets complicated, and with these examples, I see several columns brewing for the Work of Art hopper.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Paula Abdul, a judge on American Idol, incurred the wrath of many when she said to a contestant, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is your niche.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A niche is a recess in a wall for a statue or ornament; it also refers to a comfortable position in employment or in life.
\nAccording to Patricia C. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Conner, author of Origins of the Specious, fans of the show jumped all over her, not for what she said but for how she pronounced it: nitch instead of neesh. One reader wrote, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For the love of God \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 would someone please tell Paula that there is no such word as nitch.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The trouble is, Paula was right.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153niche\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has been pronounced \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nitch,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but notice how \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neesh\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is gaining in popularity? In Britain, for example, neesh is now considered standard. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how words and pronunciations make it into the dictionary and into common usage. The more people use and pronounce certain words, the more they become accepted, albeit reluctantly, by me at least.<\/p>\n
Language is what people say it is, not what the proverbial Miss Grundy dictates. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll stop beeshing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Remember a few weeks ago when some of us spotted an unusual expression in Parade Magazine? The cover story, about a female football coach identified the woman as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the only\u00e2\u20ac\u009d such coaches. The issue was whether \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can ever be an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153only.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A column followed on that and other strange uses of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}