“FOR JOHN AND I.” Consider the phrase “for John and I.” When I was growing up, it was ungrammatical and it grated on the ears. Usage has changed so that now “for John and me” is noteworthy. Since I believe that grammar should follow usage rather than logic, it’s time to start thinking of “for John and I” as correct grammar. In addition to increased usage, I think that there is an increasing belief that “for John and I” is correct. I once saw “for John and I” described as the grammatical error of the college-educated, and after reading that, I noticed that there were people who used the locution “for John and I” with pride—a pause before the phrase and a satisfied smile after saying it. For me the line has been crossed just now. The change in the rules of grammar has been ratified. The October 22 issue of the New York Review of Books, America’s premiere literary journal, carried this carefully-wrought passage: “disillusioned Soviet agents surviving the hell of wartime Europe only to be thrown, like he, into some hitherto unimagined Atlantic void.”
Categories
Archives
Recent Comments
- Gary Nuetzel on THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).
- Francesca on EATING PEAS WITH A KNIFE.
- avon wilsmore on CHEATING IN CHAMPIONSHIP BRIDGE.
- Anonymous on THE LANGUAGE WEIRDNESS INDEX.
- James Friscia on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
- Ken Babcock on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
- Lickity Splitfingers on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
- Ken Babcock on THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).
- David Quemere on THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).
- Nicholas Schaefer on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
Meta
Perhaps this is a sign that people no longer study Latin. When you learn Latin, you had better learn your cases and what is a subject and what is a predicate. My English teacher used to ask my high school class how in the world we got nineties in Latin but then couldn’t diagram sentences in English correctly. I wonder if the teaching of Latin distinctions stayed with us because they were about a foreign language, but when we turned to English, we were talking or writing about something we had absorbed in our homes, from earliest childhood. So how language was spoken in our home was more important than the grammar lessons we got at school. Case in point: All four of my grandparents came from Italy. But my father’s parents wanted to assimilate and spoke English in the home. My father’s grammar and usage were not perfect. My mother was raised in a home and neighborhood that spoke only Italian. When she went to school, she learned English as a foreign language. She had perfect English usage until, in later years, she started to use English as she’d heard my father. My sister noted this. “Mom would never have said this years ago. Listening to Daddy has corrupted her.”
Pingback: THE GRAMMATICAL ERROR OF THE COLLEGE EDUCATED. | Pater Familias
Pingback: “PREVARICATE” CAN MEAN “PROCRASTINATE.” | Pater Familias