Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

[StatisticalOutlier]

If the Movement for the Preservation of Literally needs a celebrity spokesman, I nominate Ben Affleck.

 

He was on Jimmy Kimmel after the Oscars.  There's a "feud" between Kimmel and Matt Damon, and Affleck sneaked him onto the show by wearing an enormous coat with Damon curled up under there.  Kimmel and Affleck were looking at a photo from when Affleck and Damon won the academy award for Good Will Hunting, where Damon is all smiling and Affleck isn't:

 

Affleck:  He gets the reputation for being the nice guy.  I swear to God.

Kimmel:  Right!  He's not the nice guy.

Affleck: I've been figuratively carrying him for years.

Kimmel:  There you go.  And finally...

Affleck:  Literally.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP4d9YtzkXk

 

Compare that to:

 

Affleck:  He gets the reputation for being the nice guy.  I swear to God.

Kimmel:  Right!  He's not the nice guy.

Affleck: I've been literally carrying him for years. And now I'm really carrying him.  Ha ha ha!  Get it? 

[Sandman87]

On the same subject: The show Archer deserves special recognition for having characters who know the difference between "literally" and "figuratively", to the point that it's a running gag that they will pause and correct themselves while talking.

 

We have a number of local newscasters on several different channels who are unable to pronounce "athlete" correctly. I always hear "ath-uh-lete" when they talk about sports.

 

Not a TV example, but an amusing literary ambiguity that I found in Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain: "My horse was eating the sweet-smelling grass with some relish." Most horses eschew the use of condiments.

 

 

ETA - Bonus movie entry from X-Files: Fight the Future, which was on IFC tonight: "We must take away the thing he holds most valuable. That without which he cannot live without." I think we could do without one of those "withouts" without which we could have done.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Sandman87

[St. Claire]

I just saw a commercial for Trop 50, a previous grammar offender. The spot says that Trop 50 has 50% fewer calories (as opposed to the cringe-inducing "50% less"), although it still does not finish out the comparison (fewer than what?)

[legaleagle53]

ETA - Bonus movie entry from X-Files: Fight the Future, which was on IFC tonight: "We must take away the thing he holds most valuable. That without which he cannot live without." I think we could do without one of those "withouts" without which we could have done.

 

We could also lose the "that" and combine it to say "We must take away the thing he holds most valuable and without which he cannot live."  By the way, I see what you did there.

Edited March 6, 2016 by legaleagle53

[StatisticalOutlier]

I just saw a commercial for Trop 50, a previous grammar offender. The spot says that Trop 50 has 50% fewer calories (as opposed to the cringe-inducing "50% less"), although it still does not finish out the comparison (fewer than what?)

 

Can't really blame them, though.  Like they're going to say "50% fewer calories than when we don't dilute it by half with water and still charge the same price."

[riley702]

I keep hearing people say "very unique" when describing things.  As Jed Bartlet said - and I often mumble when I hear it - "Unique means 'one of a kind.' Something can't be very unique..."

True story - we had identical twins in the children's hospital where I work, named (drum roll, please) Dominique and Unique. *headdesk* How unique can she be when she's an identical twin?

[SVNBob]

True story - we had identical twins in the children's hospital where I work, named (drum roll, please) Dominique and Unique.

Actually, that might be a reference to this scene from Beverly Hills Cop 2.

[legaleagle53]

True story - we had identical twins in the children's hospital where I work, named (drum roll, please) Dominique and Unique. *headdesk* How unique can she be when she's an identical twin?

 

It's not a question of degree because as someone pointed out upthread, "unique" is an absolute adjective that cannot be qualified or compared to show degree. Either something is unique or it isn't.  So the proper question isn't "How unique can she be,"  it's "How can she be unique?"

[shapeshifter]

I think Unique is a name that any twin would relate to, but it might cause a lot of ribbing by school children and thoughtless adults.

[SyracuseMug]

No, I don't think I omitted a word. The "forte" in "this is my forte" should be pronounced "fort" and not "fortay" because it is derived from the French word. You should only pronounce it as "fortay" if you are actually talking about the Italian musical term.

Then again, we do enjoy bastardizing French pronunciation, so at least we're consistent. :D

I'm a little late to the conversation, but I saw this on the first page, and my question is that since the French word and the Italian word are both derived from Latin fortis, why should the French source alone determine how the word is pronounced in English? I've spent my life happily using the Italian both for the musical term and in reference to my "forte," and I'm likely to continue doing so unless someone is able to give me a better reason why I shouldn't.

 

Even if the Latin matches the French, I could still argue that the Italian word means "strong" as well as "loud," and justify my stubbornness in continuing to use its pronunciation. For that matter, how the word has evolved in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan should also be considered. Romanian doesn't seem to use cognates, so I'm not sure about that one.

[Sandman87]

The Latin is irrelevant. If you're using the French term, you pronounce it French. If you're using the Italian term, you pronounce it Italian.

[legaleagle53]

I'm a little late to the conversation, but I saw this on the first page, and my question is that since the French word and the Italian word are both derived from Latin fortis, why should the French source alone determine how the word is pronounced in English? I've spent my life happily using the Italian both for the musical term and in reference to my "forte," and I'm likely to continue doing so unless someone is able to give me a better reason why I shouldn't.

 

Even if the Latin matches the French, I could still argue that the Italian word means "strong" as well as "loud," and justify my stubbornness in continuing to use its pronunciation. For that matter, how the word has evolved in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan should also be considered. Romanian doesn't seem to use cognates, so I'm not sure about that one.

 

Actually, Romanian vocabulary is about 85% Latin-based, so it has plenty of recognizable cognates with the other four major Romance languages.  The word you're looking for is foarte (pronounced "FWAR-tay"), and it's an adverb meaning "very" nowadays.

 

That said, I agree with Sandman87.  "Forte" meaning "strength" comes from French, not Italian (its opposite term is "foible," which we have bastardized into mispronouncing as "FOY-bull," even though it should really be pronounced "fwable").  It should therefore be pronounced as it is in French -- "fort."  That identical and near-identical cognates exist in Italian (forte), Spanish (fuerte), Portuguese (forte, pronounced "FOR-chee" in Brazil and "FOR-tee" in Portugal), and Romanian (foarte) is irrelevant.

Edited March 20, 2016 by legaleagle53

[SyracuseMug]

The Latin is irrelevant. If you're using the French term, you pronounce it French. If you're using the Italian term, you pronounce it Italian.

But I feel that the Latin is indeed relevant, because Latin fortis predates both the French and the Italian terms into which it evolved. If we insist that a word of French origin must be pronounced in English the way it is in French, then the French language logically should follow the same rule, and adhere to the Latin pronunciation with words of Latin origin. Same with Italian. But the point is, they don't. The French language took fortis and pronounced it one way, and the Italian language took fortis and pronounced it another way. So it seems as if we ought to be free in English to pronounce it either way, neither way, or both ways. After all, every living language is evolving all the time.

 

Actually, Romanian vocabulary is about 85% Latin-based, so it has plenty of recognizable cognates with the other four major Romance languages.  The word you're looking for is foarte (pronounced "FWAR-tay"), and it's an adverb meaning "very" nowadays.

 

That said, I agree with Sandman87.  "Forte" meaning "strength" comes from French, not Italian (its opposite term is "foible," which we have bastardized into mispronouncing as "FOY-bull," even though it should really be pronounced "fwable").  It should therefore be pronounced as it is in French -- "fort."  That identical and near-identical cognates exist in Italian (forte), Spanish (fuerte), Portuguese (forte, pronounced "FOR-chee" in Brazil and "FOR-tee" in Portugal), and Romanian (foarte) is irrelevant.

I was using Google translate, and typed "strong" and "loud" into the English field. Then I checked the translations for each of the major Romance languages. All of them produced variations of forte except for Romanian, which is what I meant when I said it didn't seem to have the same cognates for that particular word. Nevertheless, I learned something from your post, and I thank you.

[Jack Shaftoe]

But English has thousands and thousands of words that were originally loaned from French (according to some scholars up to 45% of all English words) and many, if not most, of them are not pronounced the same way as they are in French. I mean, nobody pronounces hotel with a silent initial h.

[supposebly]

A lot of them were borrowed from Old French (about 9th-14th century) even earlier into Middle English (and I mean a lot) and Old French sounds nothing like Modern French. http://pages.towson.edu/duncan/brmideng.html

Depending on when they were borrowed, they retained more or less of their original pronunciation.

 

It's perfectly normal for languages when they borrow words from other languages to adapt the pronunciation. It's because they might not have the same sounds or syllable rules don't match and speakers can't actually pronounce them like the original. That's why we have accents when we learn a second language later (after puberty) in life. It's hard to adapt to new phonological systems and the old one from the first language bleeds through.

 

Or do you really think 'angst' is pronounced like that in German? The initial vowel is more like the first one in 'ice' (if you stretch the 'i' very long, the first part is close enough) than the one in 'fair' or the vowel in 'awe'.

Or the initial sound in 'Zeitgeist'. It starts with the sounds [ts] not with a voiced [z] in German. Since English really doesn't like [ts] at the beginning of words, its pronunciation in English turned into something more workable for English.

[topanga]

 

It's perfectly normal for languages when they borrow words from other languages to adapt the pronunciation. It's because they might not have the same sounds or syllable rules don't match and speakers can't actually pronounce them like the original. That's why we have accents when we learn a second language later (after puberty) in life. It's hard to adapt to new phonological systems and the old one from the first language bleeds through.

True, but doesn't laziness also play a role sometimes? I see this often with American English translation of Spanish words. For example, the actress Zoe Saldana has been in pop culture news pretty often these days. Her actual last name is 'Saldaña' (sounds somewhat similar to  'Joe Montegna'), but I rarely see it written or pronounced that way in English-speaking outlets. I understand that the Spanish eñe might not be easily accessible on someone's keyboard, but couldn't people pronounce it correctly when they say it? Is it really that hard for English speakers to learn a sound that isn't part of our everyday English vocabulary?

 

--Full disclosure: Zoe used to pronounce her last name 'Saldaña," but she now calls herself Saldana. 

 

 

And since we're having this wonderful discussion, let me add that I will continue to pronounce 'croissant' with an 'R' sound and not a 'W' sound. Sorry, Frenchies. I don't care if it's wrong. (And I don't care if I'm being hypocritical). I don't want to talk like a four-year old. 

Edited March 23, 2016 by topanga

[supposebly]

:-) I think it's partially the keyboard, partially that once you see it written a few times without the tilde over the 'n', people just assume that's how it's pronounced. If you've never heard it pronounced correctly.

I'm not making excuses and considering how common Spanish is in the US, it's probably also somewhat unlikely. So, laziness or because it's just something that doesn't exist in English, so it's unnatural and uncomfortable for people.

Somehow people also seem to not like it when they are asked to pronounce non-English names. Remember when Katherine Heigl insisted on the "proper" German pronunciation of her last name? People bashed her for it for ages for being pretentious.

In Canada, a lot of my students change their Chinese or Korean names to something English. I asked them about it and they tell me that some of their high school teachers asked them to. Others tell me they feel they are not being noticed as much as their classmates if they keep their original names. Sometimes they tell me, they just cringe at English speakers' attempts to pronounce it. I still soldier on and try my best although I'm sure they cringe too. ;-)

 

Btw., "croissant" has both R and W in it in French. The W sound comes right after the R sound and the R is a very far back sound where the back of the tongue sort of caresses your velum. Very different from the English R. Good luck!

[riley702]

Remember when Katherine Heigl insisted on the "proper" German pronunciation of her last name? People bashed her for it for ages for being pretentious.

 

I don't remember this. I've only ever heard it with a hard "g". 

[shapeshifter]

In Canada, a lot of my students change their Chinese or Korean names to something English. I asked them about it and they tell me that some of their high school teachers asked them to. Others tell me they feel they are not being noticed as much as their classmates if they keep their original names. Sometimes they tell me, they just cringe at English speakers' attempts to pronounce it. I still soldier on and try my best although I'm sure they cringe too. ;-)

Interesting insights. A lot of Chinese students in the small, mid-western, US, liberal arts college where I am employed do this too. I often cringe at their American choices--since they're ostensibly made to fit in--like Robin for a male student or Evangeline for a female. Sadly, in 4 years, neither of them ever made the leap to "Rob" or "Evie." One student who kept her lovely Chinese name is now employed at Google.

[supposebly]

I don't remember this. I've only ever heard it with a hard "g". 

I think it was about the vowel sound. In German, the letter combination 'ei' is pronounced like 'I' in 'ice', not like 'e' in 'he'. I might be misremembering though.

[MaryMitch]

Interesting insights. A lot of Chinese students in the small, mid-western, US, liberal arts college where I am employed do this too. I often cringe at their American choices--since they're ostensibly made to fit in--like Robin for a male student or Evangeline for a female. Sadly, in 4 years, neither of them ever made the leap to "Rob" or "Evie." One student who kept her lovely Chinese name is now employed at Google.

I used to work with several Chinese people (born in China, living in the US). Only one kept his Chinese name, and we all mangled it. The others told me that they were assigned an "English" name in their schools when they learned English back in China and Taiwan.  One of them had learned written English in school but never had the opportunity to speak it until she came to the US. Her written English was impeccable, but we could hardly understand her spoken English.

[riley702]

I think it was about the vowel sound. In German, the letter combination 'ei' is pronounced like 'I' in 'ice', not like 'e' in 'he'. I might be misremembering though.

Ah! Again, I've only ever heard it like "ice". I think I'm with her on this one. Hie-gl isn't that hard and you're not being snotty when you correct someone mangling your name.

[StatisticalOutlier]

For example, the actress Zoe Saldana has been in pop culture news pretty often these days. Her actual last name is 'Saldaña' (sounds somewhat similar to  'Joe Montegna' [Mantegna]), but I rarely see it written or pronounced that way in English-speaking outlets. I understand that the Spanish eñe might not be easily accessible on someone's keyboard, but couldn't people pronounce it correctly when they say it? Is it really that hard for English speakers to learn a sound that isn't part of our everyday English vocabulary?

 

But the "ñ" sound IS a part of our everyday English vocabulary.  Does a day go by that we don't hear "Kanye"?  And the name "Tonya" rhymes exactly with "Saldaña."

 

There's not even anything to learn with that one. 

 

 

--Full disclosure: Zoe used to pronounce her last name 'Saldaña," but she now calls herself Saldana.

 

That's a shame.

[MaryPatShelby]

I was just thinking about the French " Voila", which I'm pretty sure is spoken with the V sound. But so many people say it, and spell it, as " wah-la".

[Shannon L.]

 

But the "ñ" sound IS a part of our everyday English vocabulary.  Does a day go by that we don't hear "Kanye"?  And the name "Tonya" rhymes exactly with "Saldaña."

But how often do people see it written with the symbol over the "n"?  Kanye and Tonya have a "y" after the "n" and Montegna has the "g" before it (and I bet there are a lot of people who wouldn't know how to pronounce Montegna).  There are many states here where Spanish isn't as popular, so I can see people not knowing how to pronounce it.  Hell, when my brother was young, just 30 years ago, many people called him "Seen" because they had no idea that "Sean" started with an "Sh" sound.  My mom's nurse even insisted that she'd spelled it wrong on the birth certificate and tried to convince her that the proper spelling was "Shawn".

[StatisticalOutlier]

I thought when Topanga said, "learn a sound that isn't part of our everyday English vocabulary," s/he was referring to the sound itself.   Like rolling an "r" in Spanish--we don't do that in English and I just can't make it sound right.  But saying an "ñ" is no problem for an English speaker.

 

And it's Mantegna, assuming we're talking about the actor.  ~~Sorry, I can't help it.~~

[riley702]

I was just thinking about the French " Voila", which I'm pretty sure is spoken with the V sound. But so many people say it, and spell it, as " wah-la".

I think it's kinda both - vwah-la. But people get lazy ( "v" and then "w", too? That's hard!) or don't hear it properly or something.

Edited March 26, 2016 by riley702

[shapeshifter]

But the "ñ" sound IS a part of our everyday English vocabulary.  Does a day go by that we don't hear "Kanye"?  And the name "Tonya" rhymes exactly with "Saldaña."

 

There's not even anything to learn with that one. 

 

 

 

That's a shame.

Maybe Zoe should've taken a page from Kanye's mother's book and changed the spelling of her name to Saldanya or Saldanye. IDK. Is there another way to screw up the pronunciation if it is spelled that way?

[Haleth]

I was just thinking about the French " Voila", which I'm pretty sure is spoken with the V sound. But so many people say it, and spell it, as " wah-la".

Ugh.  This drives me crazy.

[candall]

Last night, on the new show You Me Her, the main character said, "You're welcome to come over to my wife and I's house."  (My slackjawed incredulity made me rewind and activate CC to confirm.)

 

I've heard possessive "I's" before. . .but only from certified idiots on reality shows.  This character is supposed to be an Associate Dean of Students/Guidance Counselor in "a sharply crafted polyamorous adult rom-com helmed by Amy Poehler."  Someone wrote that line of dialogue and a hundred industry professionals approved it before it reached my living room.

 

It's You, Me & The Grammar Apocalypse!

[NutMeg]

Hey, late to the show, but French person here pinching in regarding "this is my forte": no French speaker will ever say this is my "fort" nor "for-tay". If you really want to use something close in French, you'd say "C'est mon point fort" [this is my strong point/area] and the "t" is not pronounced. But it sounds awkward anyway. Like something badly translated :) So, just my 2 cents, but I'd go with the Italian/Latin pronunciation.

 

What often makes me laugh is how "lingerie" is pronounced in English - most French speakers who don't speak English would be hard pressed to guess its meaning :) 

[ethalfrida]

Hey, late to the show, but French person here pinching in regarding "this is my forte": no French speaker will ever say this is my "fort" nor "for-tay". If you really want to use something close in French, you'd say "C'est mon point fort" [this is my strong point/area] and the "t" is not pronounced. But it sounds awkward anyway. Like something badly translated :) So, just my 2 cents, but I'd go with the Italian/Latin pronunciation.

 

What often makes me laugh is how "lingerie" is pronounced in English - most French speakers who don't speak English would be hard pressed to guess its meaning :) 

Thank you for the forte lesson. Seriously drives me nuts.  But, how does one pronounce lingerie? 

[topanga]

Btw., "croissant" has both R and W in it in French. The W sound comes right after the R sound and the R is a very far back sound where the back of the tongue sort of caresses your velum. Very different from the English R. Good luck!

Okay, maybe then it's just my ineptitude. Thanks.

 

That reminds me of the singer Sade. Most Americans call her "Shar-day" or "Sha-day"  But as the singer herself explains how to pronounce her name, it's actually a weird combination of the two versions. The first syllable is indeed Sha (with a soft 'a,' like in 'bra'), but then there's a hint of an 'R' sound at the very end of this first syllable. I have no idea how to make "a hint of an 'R' sound." Believe me, I've tried. But I don't think either "Shar-day" or "Sha-day" is a butchering of her name. But when she was first on the music scene, many radio DJs called her "Sadie."

 

 

I thought when Topanga said, "learn a sound that isn't part of our everyday English vocabulary," s/he was referring to the sound itself.   Like rolling an "r" in Spanish--we don't do that in English and I just can't make it sound right.  But saying an "ñ" is no problem for an English speaker.

 

And it's Mantegna, assuming we're talking about the actor.  ~~Sorry, I can't help it.~~

No problem with the correction. Quite appropriate, in fact, since we're talking about the correct spelling and pronunciation of words. 

[NutMeg]

how does one pronounce lingerie? 

Aha, the "in" sound is a bit tricky to convey, and the "ie" at the end is just pronounced "ee". 

 

If you go here: http://fr.forvo.com/word/fr/lingerie/and try the top triangle (fowl, Femme - France), it's about what I would say. The second triangle  sounds more like someone who learned French that someone who's a native speaker. And the third one is Canadian, which is very different from the European (French, Belgian, Swiss) pronunciation.   

[StatisticalOutlier]

Last night, on the new show You Me Her, the main character said, "You're welcome to come over to my wife and I's house."  (My slackjawed incredulity made me rewind and activate CC to confirm.)

 

I've heard possessive "I's" before. . .but only from certified idiots on reality shows.  This character is supposed to be an Associate Dean of Students/Guidance Counselor in "a sharply crafted polyamorous adult rom-com helmed by Amy Poehler."  Someone wrote that line of dialogue and a hundred industry professionals approved it before it reached my living room.

 

It's over, candall.  Just give up.

 

Last year, I posted here about a character on Black-ish saying "Sharon and I's wedding," and had the same observation you do:  it's all over reality TV, but shocking on a scripted show.  I just can't believe that not a single person corrected it, or even more scary, someone tried and was overruled. 

 

Way back at the beginning of this this thread I wrote about being kind of a pig snout in insisting that a spelling error in a piece on the Jimmy Kimmel show be corrected before it aired, and I was just visiting the production area. 

 

I can see me as a paid employee of a show that uses "I's" in the dialogue--I'd take all my earnings and buy a 15-second spot saying I had nothing to do with that line.

[shapeshifter]

I have a coworker with a Masters degree in English who, when we are talking informally, always begins sentences with, "Me and her went to the...." Does she not see my face cringing? I don't correct her. I figure she thinks it's acceptable for informal use and it's a way of letting me know she considers me to be more than a coworker.

So, although I've yet to hear "I's," I guess it could be acceptable if used in a slang-filled dialogue.

Edited March 29, 2016 by shapeshifter

[Shannon L.]

 

I can see me as a paid employee of a show that uses "I's" in the dialogue--I'd take all my earnings and buy a 15-second spot saying I had nothing to do with that line.

I know that's incorrect, it just sounds wrong--but (and this is embarrassing because normally, my English is pretty good), what is the proper way to say it?  Because "Me and my husband's house", "my and my husband's house", "mine and my husband's house...." nothing sounds right.  Usually, if I find myself in a conversation where I have to say something about something that belongs to both of us, I just either use "my" if I'm alone or "our" if my husband is right there.

 

You know where I hear the most grammar errors? In music!  Drives me crazy to the point that if I'm singing along, I usually correct it......The most misused phrase is "you and I/me", although, when Paul sings "If this ever changing world in which we live in" in Live and Let Die, it makes me cringe. Every. Single. Time.  I simply can't sing it that way.

[legaleagle53]

I know that's incorrect, it just sounds wrong--but (and this is embarrassing because normally, my English is pretty good), what is the proper way to say it?  Because "Me and my husband's house", "my and my husband's house", "mine and my husband's house...." nothing sounds right.  Usually, if I find myself in a conversation where I have to say something about something that belongs to both of us, I just either use "my" if I'm alone or "our" if my husband is right there.

 

The correct phrase is "my husband's and my house."  Always refer to yourself as the last element of the compound possessive phrase, never the first.  The same rule applies to compound subjects ("my husband and I") and compound objects ("my husband and me").

Edited March 30, 2016 by legaleagle53

[topanga]

 

I know that's incorrect, it just sounds wrong--but (and this is embarrassing because normally, my English is pretty good), what is the proper way to say it?  Because "Me and my husband's house", "my and my husband's house", "mine and my husband's house...." nothing sounds right.  Usually, if I find myself in a conversation where I have to say something about something that belongs to both of us, I just either use "my" if I'm alone or "our" if my husband is right there.

 

The correct phrase is "my husband's and my house."  Always refer to yourself as the last element of the compound possessive phrase, never the first.  The same rule applies to compound subjects ("my husband and I") and compound objects ("my husband and me").

I agree with Shannon L. that everything sounds awkward and wrong, even legaleagle53's correct grammar. In situations like those, I tend to just reword the sentence. "Our house." 

[StatisticalOutlier]

I have a coworker with a Masters degree in English who, when we are talking informally, always begins sentences with, "Me and her went to the...." Does she not see my face cringing? I don't correct her. I figure she thinks it's acceptable for informal use and it's a way of letting me know she considers me to be more than a coworker.

So, although I've yet to hear "I's," I guess it could be acceptable if used in a slang-filled dialogue.

 

But in the Black-ish example, anyway, it wasn't slang-filled dialogue. 

 

Maybe your coworker is code switching, although it does concern me that you said she "always" says "me and her."  Surely someone with a master's degree in English has read enough English to know you don't start a sentence with "Me and her," and would use it only occasionally for effect.   

 

And that's the rub--if you hear something enough, it stops sounding wrong.  Especially if you never hear it right.  That's why I think scripted shows, in particular, should get it right, if for no other reason than that they can.

 

We have a constant onslaught of bad English from reality shows and youtube videos.  I think that's the cause of the precipitous decline in grammar we're seeing--back in the day, most of the people you saw on TV had earned a right to be there, for example by being a skilled broadcaster, and they spoke correctly.  Scripted shows generally had good grammar, except when English was mangled on purpose, for effect (like on Hee Haw, or a little bit on the Andy Griffith Show, or maybe Roseanne).  And generally, the audience knew it, or recognized it as speech they already used; I don't think anybody with a proper command of English grammar watched Hee Haw and picked up those patterns.  So it caused no real harm.

 

But now we have reality show contestants who are butchering every pronoun they've ever heard, and even I sometimes have a tiny bit of split-second doubt when I say, "between you and me." 

[Quof]

 

when I say, "between you and me."

As long as you don't say "between you and myself".

[legaleagle53]

StatisticalOutlier, on 30 Mar 2016 - 10:08 AM, said:

But in the Black-ish example, anyway, it wasn't slang-filled dialogue. 

 

Maybe your coworker is code switching, although it does concern me that you said she "always" says "me and her."  Surely someone with a master's degree in English has read enough English to know you don't start a sentence with "Me and her," and would use it only occasionally for effect.   

 

And that's the rub--if you hear something enough, it stops sounding wrong.  Especially if you never hear it right.  That's why I think scripted shows, in particular, should get it right, if for no other reason than that they can.

 

We have a constant onslaught of bad English from reality shows and youtube videos.  I think that's the cause of the precipitous decline in grammar we're seeing--back in the day, most of the people you saw on TV had earned a right to be there, for example by being a skilled broadcaster, and they spoke correctly.  Scripted shows generally had good grammar, except when English was mangled on purpose, for effect (like on Hee Haw, or a little bit on the Andy Griffith Show, or maybe Roseanne).  And generally, the audience knew it, or recognized it as speech they already used; I don't think anybody with a proper command of English grammar watched Hee Haw and picked up those patterns.  So it caused no real harm.

 

But now we have reality show contestants who are butchering every pronoun they've ever heard, and even I sometimes have a tiny bit of split-second doubt when I say, "between you and me." 

 

Why would you doubt, since you are one of the few people who understand that a preposition always takes the objective case no matter how many pronouns it may govern?

[riley702]

I tend to just reword the sentence. "Our house." 

 

Is a very, very, very fine house

[ABay]

With 2 cats in the yard.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Why would you doubt, since you are one of the few people who understand that a preposition always takes the objective case no matter how many pronouns it may govern?

 

Because I hear it so much that it's actually starting to sound not wrong.  

 

Yet I still audibly groan whenever I hear it on TV.  I can usually tell by the way a sentence is going that there's fixing to be a preposition and a 99% chance the pronouns are going to be mangled, so my groan is right there at the ready the instant the "I" starts being formed, and my groan is pretty much simultaneous.  So I'm all over it, but the prevalence has made me start doubting myself when I'm doing the constructing.  And I hate it.

[Shannon L.]

 

The correct phrase is "my husband's and my house."  Always refer to yourself as the last element of the compound possessive phrase, never the first.  The same rule applies to compound subjects ("my husband and I") and compound objects ("my husband and me").

Thank you, legaleagle53!

[dalek]

You know where I hear the most grammar errors? In music!

 

True.  However, at this point in my life, although I know it is wrong, "me and Julio down by the schoolyard" just sounds more natural than "Julio and I down by the schoolyard."

[Quof]

"Me and Julio" is not grammatically incorrect, it is simply impolite to put yourself first.   At most, it should be "Julio and me", not "Julio and I" because the line is "see you, me and Julio down by the schoolyard."   One sees "me", not "I'.    

 

And you should have heard me yelling at the tv during the Vancouver Olympics (my god, was that 6 years ago) over the stupid lyric "I believe I can fly, because of the power of you and I."   It's ME, you morons, not I.  

Edited March 31, 2016 by Quof

[shapeshifter]

And you should have heard me yelling at the tv during the Vancouver Olympics (my god, was that 6 years ago) over the stupid lyric "I believe I can fly, because of the power of you and I."   It's ME, you morons, not I.

Devil's advocate here (and I'm not familiar with the song), but could could that work if "the power of you and I" is an entity?

[legaleagle53]

Devil's advocate here (and I'm not familiar with the song), but could could that work if "the power of you and I" is an entity?

 

Only if you punctuate it correctly:  "I believe I can fly, because of the power of 'you and I.'"  The quote inside the quote is what tells me that the entire phrase "you and I" is the object of the preposition "of" as a single entity outside of the normal usage of the phrase. Otherwise, I'm going to read "of you and I" as referring to two separate elements of a compound prepositional object and think that "of" governs each of them individually ("of you" and "of me") and that the correct line is therefore "because of the power of you and me."

 

What makes it even more confusing is that there's no way to show double quotation marks in speech (or in this case, in singing), so it's going to sound incorrect even if "of" is not meant to be taken as governing both object pronouns independently of each other and not as a single unitary phrase.

Edited March 31, 2016 by legaleagle53