By Karen Bergreen and Cynthia Kaplan
Spring has sprung! The smell of new life is in the air! Crocuses, hyacinths, puppies! But wait! Mercury is in retrograde! We’re not sure what this means, but it doesn’t sound good. We’ll research. Okay, we’re back, and it’s definitely not great. Lots of SNAFUs to be expected. Double check all emails, messages, and Signal groups for poor word choice, inadvertent revelations, the presence of journalists, or a member of the team sitting in Putin’s antechamber. If you’re not sure of something, ask us. Astrology doesn’t affect us. We’re vaccinated for it.
Dear Ruthless,
Our windows face the back of another apartment building. The apartments all have balconies, which are mostly only used for storage. Lately, I’ve noticed the people across from us have put up some kind of heavy netting, like you would throw over an escaped lion, I’m guessing, to keep pigeons away? Or catch them? Anyway, besides this being aesthetically displeasing, I’m worried pigeons and even nicer birds will become ensnared and injured. I tried calling the city. They don’t care. What should I do?
Signed,
Bird Worried
Dear Bird,
KAREN: I think the pigeons would likely take umbrage with your phrase “pigeons and even nicer birds.” That said, I’d rather have pigeon poop across my way than netting. You might want to check up on their co-op rules regarding displeasing visuals. Also, contact their board president.
CINDY: I’d take pictures and give them to the Wild Bird Fund people on Columbus Avenue. Perhaps they can get the attention of the authorities. I once saw some men jump out of a car near the park and throw a net over a flock of pigeons. They gathered them up, threw them in the back of a car, and sped away before I could do anything. What could they be doing with them? Medical experiments? Exotic soups?
Dear Ruthless,
A Facebook friend of mine posts constantly about every TV show he’s watching. The problem is, I watch those shows but I’m usually a few episodes behind. He just revealed everything that happened on the Severance season finale. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is annoyed. Can I say something?
Signed,
Streaming Martha
Dear Martha,
KAREN: Your “friend” sounds horrible. I don’t even tell people the ending of Citizen Kane. I would report him to Mark Zuckerberg.
CINDY: That reminds me I want to read the tell-all by that woman who worked at Facebook. But on the subject of spoilers, Martha, you might tell your friend that you know what’s in store for him if he doesn’t shut it.
Dear Ruthless,
I am losing my mind with this whole using “I” business as the object in a sentence. For example, “Our friends invited Tom and I to their country house.” I hear it from people I know and am afraid to correct them. Journalists who should know better do it on the news, and it has even reared its ugly head on scripted TV shows. Scripted! When did it become okay for educated people to do this? In fact, it seems to only be educated people.
Signed,
Strunk & White Fangirl,
Dear Strunk,
Before we weigh in, we decided (for once) to consult an expert, Ellen Jovin, Grammar Table lady and author of the recently released grammar memoir (and star of a new documentary of the same name), Rebel with a Clause.
ELLEN: It will not go away. Subject forms of pronouns will continue to be used as objects, and object forms will continue to be used as subjects. But I don’t think it’s a problem to have such things show up in scripted TV shows. If the writing is realistic, it will reflect the erratic nature of English pronoun forms in the wild! Which one bothers you the most?
- Me and Tom visited the English teacher.
- The teacher quizzed Tom and I on gerunds.
- Jerry gave a grammar quiz to her and I.
CINDY: This is an utterly unsatisfying expert opinion! However, I will respond to Ellen’s question. Example 1 suits a kind of folksy vernacular. I don’t love it but I wouldn’t die on its hill, though I would correct my children. Examples 2 and 3 sound totally pretentious and are literally killing my eyes. Upsettingly, my autocorrect is only questioning the correctness of “Me and Tom.” My computer is a pretentious asshole.
KAREN: Chiming in here to say that I still haven’t gotten over when our lovely President Barack Obama said that the Bushes had invited “Michelle and I to the White House.”
CINDY: Aaaaaaargh!
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I believe this is called hyper correction in linguistics.
Wait, is the hyper correction the cause of the object I – because people were nervous, having been corrected for using subject me (“ Bob and me are going to the park” “it’s ‘Bob and I’ honey – fine be back back seven”)? And so they began unnecessarily switching to I (“Marty invited Bob and I to his birthday.”) – or is the hyper-correction the exasperated, natural response to that shockingly common second one (“argh – Marty invited Bob and me, honey!”) I know I among the people who will go to a slightly earlier grave because of the stress of biting my tongue so as not to be a jerk and correct people over this. So we will die off soon enough, and then no one will care, and the world will still understand what people mean, and have no shortage of more important messes to address. I guess I should Google about that hyper correction term (sometime before I die). Is it the chicken? Or the egg??
Pigeons deserve rights too! Even if they live and poop rent free.
Freedom Flyers
The test for “me” versus “I” is so easy. Take the other person out, and see which sounds correct.
Example 1.: Take “and Tom” out. Me sounds completely wrong, ergo, use “I”.
Example 2: Take “Tom and” out. I sounds idiotic, therefore, use “me”.
Example 3: Take “her and” out. Again, using I sounds bad, so use “me”.
Note, this test is appropriate for what the S & W Fangirl refers to as “… it seems to only be educated people.”
Cindy, people come, mostly from Pennsylvania, to kidnap our pigeons and use them for target shooting in the hinterlands. It is illegal and cruel.
Ugh. Worse than soup.
Oh my G-d!!!
Yes, I remember when even Obama used ”I” as the object pronoun. At that point I realized it was futile to try to get this grammar infraction out of the common parlance. I believe the source of the error is not having paid enough attention in 7th grade English when the teacher said that “I” is used as a pronoun at the end of a sentence following an intransitive verb. There’s a decent enough joke on point:
A man knocks on the pearly gates, and god says, “Who’s there?” The man answers “It is I.” And god says “We don’t need any more copy editors”.
Me was wondering why people look at I funny whenever me speak.
It’s more annoying that Google seems to think high school is now one word (I work with high school kids and see this too many times in essays). But I agree that people should learn BETWEEN YOU AND ME!!!!
The problem arises when a second person enters the picture. To decide whether it should be “me” or “I”, think how you’d say it without the other person involved. Looking at the three examples provided, no one (I hope) would say “Me visited the English teacher.; or “The teacher quizzed I on gerunds;” or “Jerry gave a grammar quiz to I.”
The other day I heard Bernie Sanders say DC was “recking havoc”. I’m OK with the havoc part.
If you heard him say it, how do you know he omitted the w or a?
Shakespeare wrote “All debts are cleared between you and I.”
True, but the character, Antonio, got a D in 10th grade English.
What about all the people who “they” instead of their or they’re. We went to they house. They crazy!
What does S&W say about using they in leu of him or her?
It says ask them their pronouns but use them, *not* they, in lieu of him or her, and also don’t use French words you can’t spell.
My English teacher spouse taught me an easy way to identify the correct pronoun to use – remove the other person and see how it sounds. Would you say,?
Me visited the English teacher.
The teacher quizzed I on gerunds.
Jerry gave a grammar quiz to l.
It’s easy, me thinks.
My correction technique for my kids is always — drop the other person’s name and then repeat the sentence. “Me visited the English teacher.” “The teacher quizzed I on gerunds.” Sounds wrong? It is.