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crispibits
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Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:33 pm
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Location: Bath
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 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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It is nonsense - you wouldn't say 'Joe Bloggs met I on..' would you? You'd say 'Joe Bloggs met me on...' Having Andy and John in between doesn't alter it...
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shifty_ben
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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No you wouldnt say that, however in the example it was Joe bloggs met John doe and me. Because you are saying someone and you the correct word to use is I not me 
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crispibits
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Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:33 pm
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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Are you sure? A quick poll in my office says it's 'me', not 'I', and the others in the middle make no difference at all... 
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shifty_ben
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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In that example, i have discovered I am wrong. However I is the correct term to use in other circumstances
[url] http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/meandi [/url]
My grammar must have gone downhill, guess thats what happens when you deal with people who communicate in grunts
EDIT:
Incidentally I would never drem of saying I and my friend went to a party, I tend to use me.
Given todays society (and take into account the age and social standing of the listener) which of these two sounds better to you
a companion/associate/close personal friend and I attended a social gathering last night, it led to an enormous consumption of alcoholic beverages and thus I am afraid I got rather inebriated and have forgotten most of the aforementioned event
or
Me and a mate went to a party last night, we ended up drinking loads, problem is I got so P*ssed that I cant remember half of it
Unless you are talking to the queen (Why would you tell her that? ) I think the second one is more fitting to todays society. Although judging by some of the people I have had to interact with
grunt, me party, grunt, me P*ssed, grunt, what party?
seems even better
EDIT 2: Having followed one of the links from there, it seems we were all wrong. Unless my understanding is wrong, the page that deals with less and fewer suggests that
10 items or less
is as correct as
10 items or fewer is
Strangely the first one makes more sense in my head but I think that is largely due to a massive desensitisation from supermarkets.
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Last edited by shifty_ben on Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Marrea
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Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:32 pm
Posts: 1846
Location: Chilterns, West Hertfordshire
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| crispibits wrote: | | It is nonsense - you wouldn't say 'Joe Bloggs met I on..' would you? You'd say 'Joe Bloggs met me on...' Having Andy and John in between doesn't alter it... |
Trouble is, it's the Andy and John in between which throws people, and makes I at the end sound almost OK. But if people have no idea of cases - nominative (subject) and accusative (object) - they will not understand why what they are saying is wrong. |
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shifty_ben
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Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:56 am
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Location: Ipswich
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Trouble is, it's the Andy and John in between which throws people, and makes I at the end sound almost OK. But if people have no idea of cases - nominative (subject) and accusative (object) - they will not understand why what they are saying is wrong.
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is that
I suggest to everyone here you are wrong - nominative
You are wrong - accusative
Nowadays it gets hard to tell what is right and wrong, there are so many people mixing correct and (technically) incorrect grammar. The one that really gets me is when people write (for example)
And they put nails through Jesus's hands
The correct way to write that is actually
And they put nails through Jesus' hands
Perhaps Im petty, but as Alice Cooper once sang its the little things!
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spottedcat
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Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:14 pm
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| MartyBartfast wrote: | | TheDoctor wrote: |
Actually, people do bother with grammar. It's just that it's changing.... |
No change there then, our language (and grammar) has always changed |
Well, here’s a truly depressing thought, at least for those of us living here in Blighty. Our American and Australian friends may wish to give parallels for what’s happening in their countries.
Consider this. Modern Italian, now a beautiful and expressive language, is the descendant not of the cultured high rhetoric of a Cicero, but of street Latin, the argot of the plebs (plebeians). At the time their speech was considered vulgar (from the Latin vulgus=the common people), but over time idiom and grammar have changed.
Consider also the inexorable spread of Estuary English, alas all too prevalent in my neck of the woods. If we could travel forwards in time one hundred years, would we find that all our descendants are speaking like chavs? If an ordinary reasonably-educated early 21st century person with a home-counties accent travelled to the early 22nd, would the people of that time be so appalled at our time-traveller’s (note possessive apostrophe ) accent that they take him to a latter-day Professor Higgins? I can imagine the scene.
’Enry ’Iggins: “Nah then. Repeat wotcha learnt.”
Time-traveller: “The bottle is in the middle of the road.”
’Enry ’Iggins: “Bleedin’ ’ell! Ge’ ’i’ raht. The bo’er is inna mi’er ovva rahd.”
And so on.
Perhaps we would have to wait two thousand years to get something as expressive as:
I wannered lahnly as a clahd
That floats on ’igh o’er vales n’ ’iws
When all a’ once ah sawer crahd
An ’ost, of effin’ daffydiws.
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shifty_ben
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Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:56 am
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Location: Ipswich
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:00 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting you mention that. Words which are now considered vulgar, such as a particular one beginning with F or many of them at least take their roots in Anglo Saxon language, many were in fact used in the same way as they are today (i.e. expressions of anger) but did not have the er.. connotations they do today In fact it goes deeper than that, over the hundreds of years things have been changed (often by the church) into things that are not what they once were...... But I wont bore everyone with that
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towy71
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Location: wild West Wales
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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oh my gawd what are we bleedin goin on abat? Its people what make the langwich innit? Only poofs an eejits wury ower spelin anat innit?
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M-Saunders
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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People say I've got a northern accent. Have I ever said 'ee by gum' on here?
M |
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TheDoctor
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Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:02 pm
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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| shifty_ben wrote: | | Quote: | But I'm totally with you on the other examples. Particularly the use of "I" for "me", whcih I hate as pretentious nonsense.
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Pretentious yes, nonsense no. |
Apologies. It isn't nonsense. I was guilty of sloppiness there. It's the thinking behind the use of "I" for "me" that's pretentious nonsense.
It comes from an attempt to import Latin grammar into English. The (golden) Latin translation for "It's me" is "Ego est" - literally "I [he, she or it] is". But English has its own grammar, and you can't just import grammatical rules from one language into another by dictact. It can happen quite naturally - eg Gaelic formations imported into the English spoken in Ireland - but that's another story.
The reason for the attempt to Latinise English was to try and make it sound as though the mass of the population couldn't speak proper English. It succeeded to the extent that lots of people feel that they might not be saying things "correctly" in formal situations. But I'll be buggered if I'll go along with this. People should be confident of speaking their minds and never mind who says they're saying it in the right way or not.
If a sentence makes sense, then its grammar must be right. If sentence was ungrammatical then it would come out as nonsense. |
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TheDoctor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| towy71 wrote: | | Its people what make the langwich innit? |
Like open software, do you mean? (see your sig) |
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shifty_ben
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Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:56 am
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Location: Ipswich
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
If a sentence makes sense, then its grammar must be right. If sentence was ungrammatical then it would come out as nonsense.
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Its making sense is highly dependant on who you are talking to though. Chavs understand what other Chavs say, but to everyone else its just nonsense. Its kind of the same with computers, you can happily tell someone they need to fix their Master Boot Record and some of them will happily tell you to speak english English is a language seperated by languages
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Nigel
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Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 9:03 pm
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Location: Gloucestershire, UK
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| M-Saunders wrote: | People say I've got a northern accent. Have I ever said 'ee by gum' on here?
M |
You have now |
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TheDoctor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| shifty_ben wrote: | | Quote: |
If a sentence makes sense, then its grammar must be right. If sentence was ungrammatical then it would come out as nonsense.
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Its making sense is highly dependant on who you are talking to though. Chavs understand what other Chavs say, but to everyone else its just nonsense. Its kind of the same with computers, you can happily tell someone they need to fix their Master Boot Record and some of them will happily tell you to speak english English is a language seperated by languages |
Just because a sentence is grammatical doesn't mean it makes sense. I didn't say that. I said that if it wasn't grammatical it wouldn't make sense.
Confused? If not, I could have another try.  |
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