Quick and dirty tips for better writing - Mignon Fogarty 2008

Chapter 6. Prozac for pronouns: getting the stuntmen of language under control

PRONOUNS ARE WORDS THAT STAND IN for nouns. They’re pros, like stuntmen. When Aardvark, Squiggly, and Grammar Girl are feeling overworked, they call in a pronoun. Because pronouns don’t get the same recognition as the big stars, they’re a little temperamental. It’s their way of getting even.

YOU AND I ARE GOING TO THE BEACH

Some pronouns will only work when they can be the subject, and other pronouns will only work when they can be the object. Remember, subjects are the ones taking action in a sentence and objects are the ones having action taken on them. For example, I is exclusively a subject pronoun, whereas me is exclusively an object pronoun.

I threw the beach ball.

(I is the subject taking the action.)

Squiggly threw me.

( Me is the object getting thrown.)

On the other hand, you is the low man on the totem pole. He has to stand in for everyone! You gets called to the set whether the script calls for a subject or an object.

You threw the beach ball.

( You is the subject taking the action.)

Squiggly threw you.

(You is the object getting thrown.)

You also fills in for one person or many people (i.e., it’s a singular and a plural pronoun). If I say, “You should go to Disneyland,” I could be talking to one person or a group of people. You could be standing in for Squiggly alone or Squiggly, Aardvark, and Sir Fragalot. It can be confusing, which is why people have created informal regional substitutes for the plural you such as y’all, you guys, and youse. Poor “you” needs to join a union!

THEY COME OVER FOR THE COMPANY, NOT THE FOOD

For some reason, people go all atwitter when company comes over. They clean things they haven’t cleaned in months, buy expensive wine, and tend to cook enough food for an army. Similarly, many literate people who know how to behave when they are alone get flustered when other people show up in their sentences.

Is there really anyone reading this book who would say, “Me love Squiggly” instead of “I love Squiggly”? Yet throw in a third party and I bet some of you would say, “Your father and me love Squiggly.” Your father and me love Squiggly is wrong for the same reasons that Me love Squiggly is wrong: you’re putting an object pronoun (me) in the subject position. The correct sentence uses the subject pronoun in the subject position: Your father and I love Squiggly. So you can analyze subject and object if you want to, but the quick and dirty tip is to consider how you would write the sentence if you were in it alone.

* Some grammarians, including me, allow people to use “they” and “them” as a singular pronoun when the sex of the subject is unknown.

People have the same problem when two or more people become the object in a sentence. Would any of you really say, “Father loves he”? I hope not! You’d correctly say, “Father loves him.” But again, a younger sibling is born and suddenly everyone forgets how to construct a sentence. It’s not Father loves he and Squiggly. Remember: object pronouns go in the object position. Father loves him and Squiggly is correct.

JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME, YOU AND I KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN

Sometimes even people who can deal with crowds in their sentences get confused when you shows up. (Hasn’t he joined a union yet?)

The reason it gets a little tricky when you combine other pronouns with you is we have to remember that you is both a subject and an object pronoun. You love Squiggly, and Squiggly loves you. You and he should go scuba diving, and I went scuba diving with you and her. They are all correct.

So now that we’ve got our pronouns straight we can move on to between you and I and figure out why it’s wrong. Between is a preposition, just as at, above, over, and including are prepositions. Because prepositions usually either describe a relationship or show possession, they don’t act alone; they often answer questions like Where? and When? For example, if I said, “Keep that secret between you and me,” between describes where the secret is to be kept. If I said, “I’ll tell you the secret at Disneyworld,” at describes where the secret will be revealed.

So, instead of acting alone, prepositions are part of prepositional phrases. In those example sentences, between you and me and at Disneyworld are prepositional phrases. And it’s just a rule that pronouns following prepositions in those phrases are always in the objective case. When you’re using the objective case, the correct pronoun is me, so the correct prepositional phrase is between you and me.

Most grammarians are sympathetic to people who say “between you and I” because it’s considered a hypercorrection.

(The theory is that people have been so traumatized by being corrected when they say things such as “Ashley and me went to the mall” instead of “Ashley and I went to the mall” that they incorrectly “correct” between you and me to between you and I.) If it helps, you can remember that Jessica Simpson’s song “Between You and I” is wrong. I don’t have anything against her. If remembering that her song is wrong helps you remember the rule, she’s done a service to the world.

DANCING WITH MYSELF

Some people seem afraid to use the word me. Another hypercorrection that avoids me (like between you and I) is throwing myself into a sentence when you are unsure or want to sound refined.

Let’s dissect what’s wrong with this sentence: Please contact Aardvark or myself with questions. Once more you’ve run into the problem of having multiple people in the sentence. Step back and consider how you would say the sentence without Aardvark. Then it usually becomes obvious—you would say, “Please contact me with questions,” not, “Please contact myself with questions.” So when you add in Aardvark it doesn’t change anything. It’s still correct to say, “Please contact Aardvark or me with questions.”

Myself is what’s called a reflexive pronoun. Just think about looking into a mirror and seeing your reflection. You’d say, “I see myself in the mirror.” You see your reflection, and myself is called a reflexive pronoun.

Other reflexive pronouns include himself, herself, yourself, itself, ourselves, and themselves. A reflexive pronoun can only be the object of a sentence; it can never be the subject. You would never say, “Myself stepped on Squiggly” (because myself is incorrectly used as the subject), so you would also never say, “Aardvark and myself stepped on Squiggly.”

The reflexive pronoun is the right choice when the subject is mentioned again in the sentence. For example, you can use myself when you are both the subject and the object of a sentence: “I see myself playing maracas” or “I’m going to treat myself to a mud bath.” In both of these cases you are the object of your own action, so myself is the right word to use.

Reflexive pronouns can also be used to add emphasis to a sentence. (In case you care, they are then called intensive pronouns.) For example, if you saw a stuntman crash on the set, you could say, “I myself saw the horrible crash.” Sure, it’s a tad dramatic, but it’s grammatically correct. If you want to emphasize how proud you are of the twelve-course meal you cooked for your dinner guests, you could say, “I prepared the dinner myself.” Again, myself just adds emphasis. The meaning of the sentence doesn’t change if you take out the word myself; it just has a different feeling because now it lacks the added emphasis.

IT IS I, GRAMMAR GIRL

It is I. (proper)

It is me. (acceptable)

Once you get past the age where the only people who call you are your friends, you’ve probably wondered (at least in passing) whether you should respond, “That is me” or “That is I” when someone calls and asks, “Is_____home?”

The short answer is that it’s proper to respond, “That is I.”

The traditional grammar rule states that when a pronoun follows a linking verb, such as is, it should be in the subject case. That means it is correct to say, “It is I” and “It was he who dropped the phone in shock when I answered, ’This is she.’ ”

Linking verbs are words such as is, was, were, appear, and seem, which don’t describe an action so much as describe a state of being. (See here and here for further discussions of linking verbs and here for a list of common linking verbs.) When pronouns follow these non—action verbs, you use the subject pronouns such as I, she, he, they, and we.

Here are some additional correct examples:

Who called Squiggly? It was he.

Who told you about it? It was I.

Who had the phone conversation? It must have been they.

Who cares? It is we.

Now the problem is that 90 percent of you are almost certainly thinking, “That all sounds really weird. Is she serious?” Well, yes, I’m serious, and that is the traditional rule, but fortunately most grammarians forgive you for not following the rule because it sounds stilted and fussy, even to us.

So if you’re the kind of person who prefers to be proper, it’s fine to say, “That is I,” and if you prefer to be more casual, it’s fine to say, “That is me.”

On a related note, people often wonder which pronoun to use after words such as than and as. For example, is it Squiggly wants to go to Disneyworld more than I/me and Squiggly isn’t as tall as I/me?

The answer is similar to the answer in the case of it is I.

Traditional grammar rules state that you use the subject pronoun (in this case, I) after words such as than and as. The sentence is considered to be short for Squiggly wants to go to Disneyworld more than I (want to go), and Squiggly isn’t as tall as I (am). But again, using the object pronoun, me, is so common that most grammarians also accept it in these situations. Some people even argue that than and as are being used as prepositions instead of conjunctions in these kinds of sentences, which would make me acceptable. Since there are reasonable arguments on both sides, which pronoun you choose (I or me) says more about your personality than anything else (formal or informal).

I hate it when language is in flux like this because it’s easy to get confused. But a lot of people have asked me these questions, and in the end, I believe it’s best to know the traditional rules. If you decide to break them, you can do so knowingly and with conviction.

ORDERING NOUNS AND PRONOUNS IN A SENTENCE

It’s a matter of politeness, not grammar, that leads people to put themselves last in a list. In the same way that you hold a door open to let others walk through first, you should let everyone else go first in your sentences.

So the song titles “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” and “Me and Bobby McGee” would be considered impolite (and they’re sentence fragments).

Even when you’re using the possessive pronoun my, you put yourself last in the list: Aardvark’s and my car is in the shop.

Speaking of Politeness: Malapropisms

“He’s the very pineapple of politeness,” is a line from the Richard Sheridan play The Rivals in which Mrs. Malaprop habitually mixes up words to make malapropisms. What she meant to say is, “He’s the very pinnacle of politeness.”

Malapropism is derived from a French phrase meaning “badly for the purpose.” Malapropisms occur when someone substitutes a similar-sounding word for another word. In another example of a malapropism, U.S. president George W. Bush, who is known for his misspeaks, in 2003 was reported to say, “nucular power pants” instead of “nuclear power plants.”

While we’re on the subject of sentence fragments, people often wonder how they should write photo captions. Should it be Bobby McGee and Me or Bobby McGee and I?

Captions are just another name for nothin’ left to lose. No. Wait. What I meant to say is that captions with just names aren’t sentences, they’re sentence fragments, so it’s awkward to try to apply grammar rules to them in the first place. You have to imagine what they would mean if they were in a sentence. Are you implying It was good enough for Bobby McGee and me or This is Bobby McGee and I in Baton Rouge?

You learned in the “It is I” section that even though I wrote that second sentence the proper way (Bobby McGee and I), it would also be acceptable in most cases to write “This is Bobby McGee and me in Baton Rouge.” So when forced to choose, I believe it is better to caption your photos Bobby McGee and me instead of Bobby McGee and I. Whew! That was a lot of explaining to end up saying the lyrics are on the right track.