English Matters

Thanks ShradaSuresh & Anasuya for the great information. I am learning so much from this thread. I am sure people like me will feel the same. Very happy.

Thanks
Sanju

Sanju

Your words of appreciation mean a lot to me. I'm very glad that you are getting something out of this thread.

The other thing that I wanted to say to you and people like you out there, is to read as much English as you can. Reading is the best way to improve your command of any language, as long as the reading materials you pick are of good quality. You will expand your vocabulary, improve your grasp of the mechanics of English grammar, and reinforce what you are learning in this thread or other places.

English newspapers are a good place to start, since the language there is usually of high quality (depends on the newspaper, though, I suppose!), the articles are not too lengthy or written in a flowery, inappropriate style, and there's the added benefit of educating yourself about what's happening around the world.

Conversely, if we are not selective enough when it comes to picking reading material, we will instead pick up bad habits and possibly be misled about things like spelling. Make a habit of reading critically too - notice mistakes that others make, and see if you can figure out the correct way to write what they have written incorrectly. If we are alert to those kinds of errors in the writing of others, we will become more alert to the errors we make ourselves, and that can only lead to improvement.

Ansuya

Hi Ansuya,

This is one of the great thread & I would love to learn a lot from this thread .

But I am not able to read ur post bcoz of ur avatar . Plz dont mind ,but can u change the avatar which u have right now . I am really scraed at night by imagining your avatar.

This is the humble request for u . At the end decision is yours.


thanks,
smitha

Ansuya,

Thanks for the awesome explanation. Knowing the rules always helps - at the cost of sounding like a middle school kid trying to undersatnd grammer, here's what I want to know more as an extension to what you have already explained. If I were to interchange the subject/object scenario in the sentence you have used,

He wanted to go the movies with my sister and me

what would be correct

1. My sister and I want to go to movies with him.
2. My sister and me want to go to movies with him - this sounds wrong to me right away - isn't it so? More so after reading your explanation.
3. My sister and myself want to go to movies with him (my sister and myself would like to go to movies with him) - if I were to split this sentence up I can see how I cannot use myself but I am curious, so please bear with me.

How correct will I be if I were to interchange 'my sister and I' to 'I and my sister or me and my sister'.

Ansuya thanks for the explanation and I do agree that sometimes it gets difficult to read through all the technicalities...my apologies to the other Ilites who may not find it necessary.

I also thoroughly enjoyed reading the commonly used/misused words that are regional. To the point of usage of the N*** word, I am still surprised when it is used to refer to black color in spanish though pononuced slightly differently Colors in Spanish: EnchantedLearning.com

I bring this point up because my six year old is fascinated by languages and wants to learn different things and so many times I am grateful that he is still innocent enough to just accept things for they are but I do get worried when he tries to use these words infront of an adult who may not be informed enough - so imagine the scene if he were to read as just by following the sounds he is seeing!

The other thing that I am still not able to come to terms with is the fact that in school, he is encouraged to write spellings as he says it so most often, freinds become frens ect. While I do not have an issue with this method of learning, I do worry when they donot correct as they fear that this may dissuade a child from learning to spell!

Do you think I should be discussing more in kids section?

And finally, Smitha, if you notice and observe, Aansuya's avatar is just an eye of a feline - tiger, may be a cat? Think about it, while your fear may be real and very relevant to you, this could be an ideal chance to get over it...I mean fear of looking at the avatar vs love for English language and this does not mean, Ansuya should not change and my apologies to both of you for butting in with my take....

Originally Posted by Ansuya

Before I start, I need to define the following terms that will be relevant to this discussion:

"I" and "me" are what we call PRONOUNS - a pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun.

The use of "I" or "me" depends on whether the pronoun is being used as an OBJECT or SUBJECT of a sentence.

Very simply put, a subject performs an action, while an object has an action performed upon it.

Here is a simple example of this:

I am going to the store today - "I" is the subject (performing the action)

He is always doing favours for me - "me" is the object (receiving the action)

Now, even if you don't understand all the pronoun/object/subject mumbo-jumbo up to now, you'll still "instinctively" know which is the right word to use in the above examples - after all, we wouldn't say

Me is going to the store today.

OR

He is always doing favours for I.

because we just know from the sound of it that it is wrong.

The difficulty that Srama brings up (and rightly so) is when we have two objects in a sentence:

He wanted to go the movies with my sister and me.

OR

He wanted to go to the movies with my sister and I.

where "sister" and "I"/"me" are the two objects in question.

In this case, people are tempted to use the more formal-sounding "I", because somewhere along the line, we got the idea that this was how "proper" English was spoken. However, the rule states that "I" should be used as a subject, not an object, and in the above sentence, "sister and me/I" are objects, not subjects.

***I am sure I have scared away half the people reading this thread with all the technical, grammatical explanations so far (I'm getting a little frightened myself, to tell you the truth). Luckily, you can safely ignore all of the above in solving this problem because there's a simple trick to figure out whether to use "I" or "me", and here it is!

The trick is to think of the sentence as having two separate objects. So formulate it like this:

1. He wanted to go the movies with my sister.

2. He wanted to go to the movies with I.

3. He wanted to go to the movies with me.

Right away, we can tell that the second sentence just sounds wrong. Therefore, "me" would be the correct choice, and our final, correct sentence should read

He wanted to go the movies with my sister and me.

Here's another example:

My cat and I love to take long afternoon naps.

OR

My cat and me love to take long afternoon naps.

If we separate the sentences, we get the following:

1. My cat loves to take long afternoon naps.

2. Me love to take long afternoon naps.

3. I love to take long afternoon naps.

In this case, the second sentence is clearly wrong, just from the way it sounds. So, the correct form should be:

My cat and I love to take long afternoon naps.

This corresponds with the rule, about "I" being a subjective pronoun, and "me" being an objective pronoun, since "cat" and "I" are the ones performing the action here, and are subjects of the sentence. However, you can get by even if you just ignore all the rules, and go instead by the sound once you separate the sentences.

English can be depended upon to have exceptions for every rule, but I'm not going to go into those here, as I believe that exceeds the scope of this thread.

Congratulations to those who have made it to the end of this rather wordy post! If I've confused you in any way, let me know and I'll be happy to clarify. Srama, I hope this answers your question sufficiently, and once again, thanks! This is exactly the kind of query I was hoping to get.

Ansuya

Sharada, enjoyed reading this.

Here's my share of an incident that happened to my FIL and about which I still tease him a lot about it by asking the same question again and again! The last time he was visiting us, we went to a pet store and while he was busy looking at some rabbits or something, a middle aged woman walks up to him and says "do you have time" and my FIL turned red and in his mind he was giving a fitting reply when he said "what for?" - now it was the lady's turn to turn red and I could not help laughing out loudly though I walked up to her and told her the time. Later on, I explained to FIL that she was asking for time and not if he had time to do something! Oh BTW my FIL is 70+

Originally Posted by ShardaSuresh

Hi Ansuya,

Great thread. Here is a personal experience of mine.

I was chatting with a client of mine, he lives in the US. I said "I read the requirements, but I have some doubts'. What I meant was I have some questions and need some clarification. As we use the word doubt (in India) to mean questions. (esp when we speak to our professors)

However, my client understood it as if I was doubting the requirements. Meaning, I thought his ideas was wrong.

We had a good laugh about that. As he was a regular client of mine I could explain to him the colloquial meaning of that word . If I had done this with a prospective client I have no doubts that I would have lost the contract.

Since you have taken the lead in this thread, I want to ask you something. Can we also mention the colloquial words, which are grammatically correct but may be understood in different ways. If you feel otherwise, I will without a doubt follow the rules you set.

Hi Ansuya,

It's a Great Idea to have this thread.
keep up the Good Work.

Cheers,

Chithra Sekar

Srama

Thanks for the challenging questions! I'm enjoying the grammar and the technical side of things - I'm a hopeless nerd that way, don't tell anyone... :), so I don't mind explaining things at that level. I just wanted to give an option to those people who didn't want to slog through all that. But I am so glad that you are interested in the reasoning behind the rules and mechanisms. After all, a complete understanding of the issues at hand can only be a good thing.

As for the answers to your questions:

1. My sister and I want to go to movies with him.
2. My sister and me want to go to movies with him - this sounds wrong to me right away - isn't it so? More so after reading your explanation.
3. My sister and myself want to go to movies with him (my sister and myself would like to go to movies with him) - if I were to split this sentence up I can see how I cannot use myself but I am curious, so please bear with me.

In the 3 numbered sentences you give, the first sentence is correct. It follows the rules we laid out in my previous post, and you've clearly got the hang of it judging by your comment after the second sentence.

The third sentence is incorrect because "myself" is a reflexive pronoun - "reflexive" because it should refer to a subject that has already been mentioned. As "I" hasn't been said yet, "myself" cannot be used. Here's an example of the correct use of the reflexive pronoun "myself":

I see myself becoming a lawyer in the future.

"I" is the subject of the sentence, and the reflexive pronoun "myself" refers to that subject. But like I said, even if you don't understand or don't care for the rules, splitting up the sentence is a quick and easy way to check which option is correct. But I must congratulate you, Srama, for being so diligent about understanding the rules. It's not an enthusiasm I see often!

Many language curricula don't even teach grammar anymore, which brings us to what you say about your son's spelling. When I did my teaching diploma, we were told that the latest trend was not to correct every aspect of English usage every time. In other words, if we were marking a piece of writing, it was counter-productive to diligently point out every spelling and grammatical error. Now, I'm sure your son is far from this stage, but his teacher not correcting his spelling seems to be a reflection of the same kind of thinking.

In other words, the child needs to learn and build creativity, mechanics, confidence, etc. and all those other things that sometimes get pushed aside if we only focus on 100% accuracy when it comes to writing and reading. I'm in two minds about this philosophy, and I personally think too many from the latest generation have ATROCIOUS spelling and writing skills, but I just may be a grumpy old person who isn't moving with the times :) The best way to ensure your son learns to spell is have him read as much as is possible.

On to your next question:

I tried to find a technical explanation for why "I and my sister" or "Me and my sister" is wrong, and I couldn't! I'm sure there is one, but I just don't know it. So, the best I can offer is the feeble "It just sounds wrong!". It may be just the way it is. If someone out there has a better response, I'd be glad to resolve this issue.

I wouldn't worry about your son's use of the word "Negro" when he means "black" in Spanish. That's probably the word's original root, and used in that context, it is perfectly acceptable, unless the PC police intend to change the Spanish language. This is what I meant about context being so important, and why we have to be so mindful of what we say, when, and to whom. It's great to hear he's so enthusiastic about learning languages and new words.

I don't mind you weighing in on my avatar. I sent a PM to Smitha explaining my position. While I don't want to be scaring people, after much thought, I've decided I love cats and my avatar too much to change it! I hope no one else out there is prevented from reading this thread because of it. Let me know if it's causing widespread panic and fear, and I'll re-consider changing it.

Ansuya

Chitra

I do appreciate your feedback and encouragement, and I hope you enjoy reading this thread in the future. It's turning out to be a good mix of learning and fun!

Ansuya

Ansuya,

Thanks for your prompt response - It was interesting to read about reflexive pronouns - I had no clue about them honestly! About the second question, I will also do some work and see if I can get an explanation and you have no idea how much I appreciate your honest answer about wanting to learn!

About my son, what bothers me is he is interested in learning the correct way but he is told it is ok. As you pointed out, he is a good reader, quite advanced for his age and knows instinctively when he is making a mistake - I was just wondering about it. I do correct most of his work in a way he gets it and he loves it. So you know, I am old school too - while I understand very well that modifications to a language are inevitable and appreciate it to a large extent, I still have ways to go before I can accept language with bad spellings and grammer especially while being taught in schools where English is the only language of communication. This reminds how it was very interesting for me to see the "Language tree" at Ellis Island, which very beautifully explains the the derived common words from other language that have been incorporated into American English - I really did enjoy reading all about it.

And as far as my interest in grammer, I am student of Sanskrit and I love the language more for its grammer and I can understand and appreciate the beauty of this language because its grammer and I believe that is the case for almost all the languages! and hence my interest in learning more about it.

Again thanks for all the explanation. Needless to say, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Originally Posted by Ansuya

On to your next question:

I tried to find a technical explanation for why "I and my sister" or "Me and my sister" is wrong, and I couldn't! I'm sure there is one, but I just don't know it. So, the best I can offer is the feeble "It just sounds wrong!". It may be just the way it is. If someone out there has a better response, I'd be glad to resolve this issue.

Ansuya

dear Ansuya ,

thanks so much for starting such an interesting thread...will follow this...as i just love the English language....

Mindi