Martha Johnsen often poses questions on tricky grammar issues. Monday, on her morning radio program, she asked which of the two is correct: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He and his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Him and his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n
Donning my Language Cop uniform, I quickly called Martha, the morning DJ on KFUN, and explained that both are correct, depending on their function in the sentence. Though there are exceptions, pronouns that appear at the beginning of the sentence generally are in the nominative case and call for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153she,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Pronouns at the end (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153him,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153her,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153them\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) usually are in the objective case. But it also depends on the meaning of the sentence. Each of the following sentences demonstrates the proper case of the pronoun: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Both he and his wife are concerned\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The search involved both him and his wife.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
What often confuses people is the introduction of other players into this linguistic epic. Nobody has trouble with, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He gave the car to me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but when others appear, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s confusing: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He gave the car to my brother, my sister, my uncle and …\u00e2\u20ac\u009d By this time, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve forgotten how we started the sentence and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re tempted to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He gave the car to … she and I.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Mistakes in pronouns commonly appear when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more than one person referred to. So if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re unsure whether it should be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Martha and I\u00e2\u20ac\u009dor \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Martha and me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d just ask yourself which word you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d use by itself.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
A long-time acquaintance, Aurelia Livingston, recently asked me to tackle the lie\/lay grammatical issue in this column. Should we say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to lay down,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to lie own\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complicated because in addition to the action of placing something down, including oneself, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another meaning dealing with honesty: Are you lying to me?<\/p>\n
The project of solving lie and lay could be formidable, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need to do some homework. I promise to address it in a future column.<\/p>\n
Too often, we language purists fail to eschew obfuscation: we complicate things when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to clarify. I suspect that just might have happened when I phoned Martha Johnsen to provide my take on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he\/him and his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d issue.<\/p>\n
English is strange. We can utter a mostly incorrect sentence such as, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Me buy three cow yesterday.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Even when the case (I, me), the tense (buy, bought) and number (cow, cows) are incorrect, people still understand us.<\/p>\n
Well, most languages have case, gender, tense, number, and much more. They lead to precision, but because of the many exceptions, especially in English, learning often is difficult.<\/p>\n
So, me now ends this subjects (unless someone be interested in buying three cow).<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sorry, sir, but we aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to do that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Do what? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not as if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m asking officials to let 76 of my primos from Ciudad Juarez into the U.S. and be placed in front of the line.<\/p>\n
What that store manager wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to do might seem trivial, even petty, but I was nevertheless surprised at the man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s answer.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
My downfall is in liking things a little bit but not a lot. I craved a fish fillet sandwich at a new fast-food eatery in town and asked for the tartar sauce \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on the side.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (I would have explained that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want to spread the sauce on myself,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but the help might have thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d look silly wearing a tartar fedora).<\/p>\n
Dutifully, the server took my order, but as I was pouring my drink, she approached me and said they could either omit the sauce or place it on the sandwich, but they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to place it in a little cup, on the side. I explained that just two days earlier I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d asked for the same thing and received the tartar in a tiny cup.<\/p>\n
But this time it was different. I asked for a refund, as I like tartar sauce just enough to have a tiny portion served, unlike the huge glop that usually accompanies such an order.<\/p>\n
The request for a refund was more trouble than I had expected. It took three workers to perform the deed, one to unlock the register, another to have me sign some important documents, with signature, phone and address; and a third person, I guess, just for moral support.<\/p>\n
Strange that one day they \u00e2\u20ac\u0153do it all for you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but the next day they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not allowed to. I wonder whether someone can explain why customers must take either all or none of that sauce.<\/p>\n
Last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience somehow reminded me of that unforgettable diner scene in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Easy Rider,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which Jack Nicholson needed to jump through several culinary hoops just to get toast.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Last year, this column got quite a bit of reaction to an item in which we asked readers to translate and otherwise simplify certain common expressions couched in eloquent terms. A couple were:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid exiguous,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Twinkle, twinkle, little star,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Birds of a feather flock together.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Here are a few more. Your responses and additional submissions are welcome.<\/p>\n
And as I explained to a disappointed group of kids at my grandchild\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday party, after passing out Popsicles, with varying degrees of hardness: Many are cold but few are frozen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martha Johnsen often poses questions on tricky grammar issues. Monday, on her morning radio program, she asked which of the two is correct: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He and his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Him and his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Donning my Language Cop uniform, I quickly called Martha, the morning DJ on KFUN, and explained that both are correct, depending on their […]<\/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":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions\/823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}