I can already hear my family saying, "Here she goes again," but they know this post on pronouns has been rumbling around in my head for a long time. I'm just taking the opportunity to blog what I've been articulating to them...that being my lack of understanding as to how pronouns have become such a grammar problem in our society. Think back to your grade school grammar lessons, in particular the personal pronoun cases:
nominative (the subjects of clauses): I, you, he, she, it, we, they
possessive (show ownership): my, his, her, their, etc. - generally not a problem
objective (direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of a preposition): me, you, him, her, it, us, them
We begin our sentences (or clauses) with the subject pronouns, and we use the objective pronouns following an action verb or a preposition. The correct usage seems to become a problem when people are using pronouns in a compound subject or predicate. Example: "Him and her are going on a cruise." You wouldn't say, "Him is going on a cruise." The correct usage would be, "He and she are going on a cruise." By dropping one of the pronouns, we can easily discern the correct pronouns to use. Another example is: "Her and her sister bought the same dress." By dropping the noun (sister), the evident choice would be, "She and her sister bought the same dress." Likewise, objective case pronoun problems seem to occur when used following a preposition. Example: We commonly hear the phrase, "between you and I," rather than the correct "between you and me."
Nominative (subject) pronouns should also be used following linking verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, and forms thereof that rename the subject). Example: Instead of saying, "It is him," the correct pronoun would be, "It is he." Unfortunately, this actually sounds abnormal in our society.
If you've made it to this point in my feeble attempt at a grammar lesson, thank you for bearing with me. I realize I might have a more heightened sensitivity to this issue than most people, but I still wonder...how did we arrive at this point of common pronoun misuse?
Laziness. Much devolution in language--any language--can be traced to laziness, simple laziness. We are in the process (if we have not already arrived) of changing from a written/literary society to an oral culture. Thus we use the simplest means possible to express our thoughts.
ReplyDeleteaint that the truth,it dont matter what you says as long as you no what yous ment.
ReplyDeleteAargh! "Yous"...please, not that too!
ReplyDeleteStudents have been forced to perform to the lowest common denominator for many years.
ReplyDeletegrannyof9
now rithmatic aint got nutin ta do with it
ReplyDeleteMe and Joel...I mean Joel and I ;) are trying to determine the identity of witty "anonymous." Must be someone from Michigan, because that's the only place (we think) "yous" is spoken.
ReplyDelete