Grammar

[heliona]

Remember a wee while ago I asked about whether 'Oliver and I' was correct as opposed to 'Oliver and me'? (I was for the 'I' side and pretty much everyone else was on the 'me' side.)

Well, kyizi's question about apostrophes had me hunting the internet for stuff about grammar and look what I found:

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Many people utter such statements as "Mary and me are friends," whereas conventional grammar insists, categorically, that it should be "Mary and I are friends." English rules of case require that any noun or pronoun that serves as the subject of a sentence must be in the nominative case. Since English nouns take the same form in both the nominative and objective case, this rule is of no consequence with nouns, but it is important with personal pronouns because all of them (except it and you) have different forms in the nominative and objective cases. In the sentence, "Mary and I are friends," the pronoun is the subject (it can be nothing else); thus, the appropriate form of the pronoun is I, not me.

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The full article is here: Grammar Mudge

It pretty much says what I was trying to say to everyone that insisted it should be 'Oliver and me'. I'd now vindicated that I was right all along! :p

[ETA: I wasn't really expressing myself well yesterday! What I wanted to say was that 'Oliver and me' wasn't the correct form in every circumstance, which seemed to me what people were telling me. This article proves that I was right on that count: there are times when it should be 'Oliver and I'.

I was wrong about the instance where I had written it, and once it was explained to me, I understood why (although notasalmon's explanation makes more sense than anyone else's, probably because she's actually using grammatical language, as opposed to just saying that it just is!). (Which I know I do a lot, but as I never studied grammar past the age of about eight, even though I know most of the rules, I don't know how to express them.)

There, does that make more sense than what I wrote up above? *g*]

Comments

[hellokimberly.livejournal.com]

I think you are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I believe depending on how you think it should go, one can google and find articles to support both you and me as well as you and I.

I just found an article that said using you and I is ignorant and another one saying that you and I arises from hypercorrection.

So, yeah... write you and I or you and me since apparently neither is correct depending on which article you find and site. *nodnod* ;o)

[heliona.livejournal.com]

To be fair I wasn't searching for articles about it, I was searching for articles about something else, and I just happened to read it, and it expressed what I was trying to say much better than anything I could write!

I think the whole argument arises from the fact that English as a language has a lot of exceptions to the rules and that grammar has changed and is still changing.

I think I'm stuck in the old style of grammar! *g*

It doesn't matter, I just feel vindicated that there are other people out there that feel the same as me! I changed what I'd written to stick with what everyone else was telling me, anyway. :)

[notasalmon.livejournal.com]

Heya hon,
I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with you...

Your sentence goes:
"Snape would definitely use it as an excuse to give Oliver and I another detention."

The extract you just posted says where the pronoun is the subject, you use "I", and where it is the object, you use "me". Your sentence breaks down as follows:
Snape = subject
Dentention = action
Oliver and [Fiona] = object

If the sentence were only talking about Fiona, it would read:
"Snape would definitely use it as an excuse to give me another detention."

Me = object. Adding Oliver means that there are two objects in the sentence. Therefore the accusative version of the pronoun will be used in either case.

That said, the article you pointed out is a good one and makes a strong case for the fact that language is constantly evolving and that sometimes classic grammar just isn't appropriate. So you are justified in writing it your way because that's how it might well be used IRL now.

[celentari.livejournal.com]

Above comment is right.

I got in a faff about this in my first year at uni and asked my tutor, who explained it much as above, and he's a professor of English at Oxford, and really should know.

It's basically whichever sounds right if you leave out the extra person.

[heliona.livejournal.com]

You see, that makes sense to me, and if notasalmon had been around when I'd had this problem, I'd have totally understood!

But people seemed to be saying that no matter what the circumstances, it should always be 'Oliver and me' and that was what I was violently objecting to!

[heliona.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I wasn't very good at expressing myself yesterday, and I was also in a rush when I found out it was past time to leave work and catch a train!

Yes, in the 'Oliver and I' instance, I was wrong, and once it was explained to me, it made perfect sense.

I think what I got confused about was how people seemed to be saying that there was no instance where it should be 'Oliver and I' (not in reference to the Snape quote, just in any example), whereas I was trying to point out that there were instances where 'Oliver and I' would correct and 'Oliver and me' would be wrong!

As you pointed out, the main reason I pointed at that article was that it made some good points about how grammar is evolving (I was thinking about a conversation recently with nimoloth involving grammar and slang and what was correct.).

I think I'll go and retype the post so that it actually says what I want it to say, so people can understand me!