"It's" vs. "Its"

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'm what a lot of people call a "grammar Nazi." I'm fine with that. It's also one of the reasons I love this forum--almost everyone uses proper grammar, or at least doesn't completely butcher the language. Still, there's one mistake that seems prevalent, as the title suggests. This little explanation is a friendly suggestion; I didn't even figure out the difference and proper usage of "it's" and "its" until I was a junior in college.

Simply put, "it's" is a contraction for "it is." "Its" is possessive. For example, one would say "It's a very hot day." A use of the possessive would be as follows: "That dog is chewing its bone." The easiest way to figure out if you're using the correct form, just replace the word with "it is," and see if it works. For example, "It is a very hot day" works, while "That dog is chewing it is bone" does not.

That concludes the lesson for the day.

[Charles Darnay]

The next one should be commas; when to and not to use them.

[cacian]

Hi Mutatis-Mutandis this is a great idea for a thread and as you know English is my third language.
For some reason I have never had any trouble differentiating between its and it's. I have and will always get them right (hopefullu haha).
However since we are in a 'grammar' thread I would like to mention the only two recurrant mistakes I make are

wether/whether
and
then/than
I always forget to add the H in wether
and
get the E and A muddled in then and than.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The next one should be commas; when to and not to use them.
I still have trouble with commas . . . probably why I'm not too big of a stickler on them.

Hi Mutatis-Mutandis this is a great idea for a thread and as you know English is my third language.
For some reason I have never had any trouble differentiating between its and it's. I have and will always get them right (hopefullu haha).
However since we are in a 'grammar' thread I would like to mention the only two recurrant mistakes I make are

wether/whether
and
then/than
I always forget to add the H in wether
and
get the E and A muddled in then and than.

Well, you'll just have to remember the "h" in whether. I'd just play it safe and use "whether" all the time, unless you often discuss castrated sheep.

And there's no real "trick" to remembering the difference for then and than like this is for its and it's (when you can substitute "it is"). Then us used for naming the chronological order or things (We went to dinner and then to the movies) and than is used to differentiate two ideas/things (I'd rather go to a movie than dinner).

I'm 97.3% sure I'm correct on that. :)

[Sancho]

There’s still some wiggle room with commas.

Try:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynn Truss or Lapsing into a Comma, by Bill Walsh

Or, when in doubt, use a dash. The pedantic patrol hasn't gotten their hands on the em dash yet.

[Charles Darnay]

There’s still some wiggle room with commas.

Try:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynn Truss or Lapsing into a Comma, by Bill Walsh

Or, when in doubt, use a dash. The pedantic patrol hasn't gotten their hands on the em dash yet.

I was so dash happy back in the day; I don't know why. A high school English teacher really had it out with me for my use of dashes and I have cut back on them since. I may use them in this forum for the simple reason that grammar is secondary to the thoughts itself here: I tend to try to get things out as fast as possible without worrying too much about it. Or I am writing on an iPad and using proper grammar on a tablet can be a great pain.

[Scheherazade]

Simply put, "it's" is a contraction for "it is." It could also mean "it has".

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

It could also mean "it has".
Yep. I'll add that in to the OP.

There’s still some wiggle room with commas.

Try:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynn Truss or Lapsing into a Comma, by Bill Walsh

Or, when in doubt, use a dash. The pedantic patrol hasn't gotten their hands on the em dash yet.

I'm all for the Oxford comma. People say you don't need it, but not using it has never made sense to me.

http://www.verbicidemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Oxford-Comma.jpg

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/why-i-still-use-the-oxford-comma.jpg

[stlukesguild]

I had a grammar Nazi in one of my college classes. On my first essay I got a D for a run-on sentence... I used a comma as opposed to a semi-colon. This was the lowest grade I ever got in college... and it was one of those useless, filler classes (the History of Public Education). From there on I went over every paper with a fine-tuned comb and brought the grade back up to the point that I didn't even need to take the final (even an F on the test would have left me with an A over-all).

Yes... the Oxford comma. We were given leeway on that because their was no clear agreement among grammarians (is there a degree in that?). Now I'd get reamed for my use of the ellipsis to denote a pause as is sometimes used in poetry. Looking at the Wiki entry on the ellipsis it seems that the various guardians of grammar are not in agreement as to its appropriate use. (Note the proper use of "its").

[Silas Thorne]

I think another big error people make is confusing 'your' and 'you're'. I lose track of the number of times I see people writing 'your' instead of 'you're' when they want to say 'you are'. I think that if someone gets through school in an English-speaking country without knowing the difference something has gone horribly wrong.

[Charles Darnay]

I think another big error people make is confusing 'your' and 'you're'. I lose track of the number of times I see people writing 'your' instead of 'you're' when they want to say 'you are'. I think that if someone gets through school in an English-speaking country without knowing the difference something has gone horribly wrong.

unfortunately homonym confusions is far down on the "how could you have possible graduated from high school" list.

[papayahed]

I think another big error people make is confusing 'your' and 'you're'. I lose track of the number of times I see people writing 'your' instead of 'you're' when they want to say 'you are'. I think that if someone gets through school in an English-speaking country without knowing the difference something has gone horribly wrong.


I so do that. Apparently my default is "your". So many times if I'm writing quickly I'll always put "your" no matter what.

[Sancho]

I was so dash happy back in the day; I don't know why. A high school English teacher really had it out with me for my use of dashes and I have cut back on them since. I may use them in this forum for the simple reason that grammar is secondary to the thoughts itself here: I tend to try to get things out as fast as possible without worrying too much about it. Or I am writing on an iPad and using proper grammar on a tablet can be a great pain.

Hah! I had an early addiction to semicolons; I’m practically cured. Maybe your H.S. English teacher was just miffed because she (he?) couldn’t mark something up if it had no rules. A clever student can defend an em dash.


I had a grammar Nazi in one of my college classes. On my first essay I got a D for a run-on sentence... I used a comma as opposed to a semi-colon. This was the lowest grade I ever got in college... and it was one of those useless, filler classes (the History of Public Education). From there on I went over every paper with a fine-tuned comb and brought the grade back up to the point that I didn't even need to take the final (even an F on the test would have left me with an A over-all).

I took my undergrad degree in Mechanical Engineering, and the professors in the engineering department couldn’t punctuate their way out of a wet paper bag. It was a good place for me. I did have a guy mark me down on a Fluid Mechanics test for not using proper engineering notation on the problem sets. I got all the right answers and still wound up with a C (one of many). Fascist.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I love semi-colons, now that I actually know how to use them. They're pretty much useless, though. I told my students not to worry about them and just use periods. Much simpler.

I had a grammar Nazi in one of my college classes. On my first essay I got a D for a run-on sentence... I used a comma as opposed to a semi-colon. This was the lowest grade I ever got in college... and it was one of those useless, filler classes (the History of Public Education). From there on I went over every paper with a fine-tuned comb and brought the grade back up to the point that I didn't even need to take the final (even an F on the test would have left me with an A over-all).

Yes... the Oxford comma. We were given leeway on that because their was no clear agreement among grammarians (is there a degree in that?). Now I'd get reamed for my use of the ellipsis to denote a pause as is sometimes used in poetry. Looking at the Wiki entry on the ellipsis it seems that the various guardians of grammar are not in agreement as to its appropriate use. (Note the proper use of "its").
Yeah, those useless filler classes can be the worst (I've had great ones, too, though). It'll be weird when I start teaching 101 if I have students in the class older than me, which I most likely will; I haven't had a class yet without an old-timer. It'd feel weird giving them low grades. It probably won't be a problem, though; I've observed that the older a student, the better a student.

I'd never mark a student down for not using an Oxford comma since there is no agreement. I would state my position on it, though. I've always thought it was pretty clear than an ellipsis can either mean a pause or a signal that something has been left out, but I've run into a few people who only seem to think its for the latter. Using them too much can get quite distracting, though, is using them as a pause.

I think another big error people make is confusing 'your' and 'you're'. I lose track of the number of times I see people writing 'your' instead of 'you're' when they want to say 'you are'. I think that if someone gets through school in an English-speaking country without knowing the difference something has gone horribly wrong.
I do this, too. I don't think it's that people don't know the difference, it's just an easy mistake to make when you're writing something quickly and informally (like these forums); the same problem can be seen with there, their, and they're.

[Sancho]

How do you feel about artfully breaking the rules, MM?

I’ll probably butcher this, but Flannery O’Conner once said that there are no rules in fiction. You can do whatever you can get away with, but you can’t get away with much. Anyway, it was something like that.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

How do you feel about artfully breaking the rules, MM?

I’ll probably butcher this, but Flannery O’Conner once said that there are no rules in fiction. You can do whatever you can get away with, but you can’t get away with much. Anyway, it was something like that.

I'm for breaking the rules if it's done correctly. It's brilliant when it's pulled off--Faulkner, McCarthy, Joyce (and so many others) can pull it off wonderfully . . . but they're geniuses. Of course, when it comes to poetry and dialogue, it's fine, though the same idea applies with poetry as with prose, and with dialog, I find it's often appropriate to break grammar rules, since people rarely speak correctly. I try not to break many rules in my prose or poetry--though there are some I think should be broken. When I'm writing prose, I rarely worry about that not ending in a proposition nonsense.

[stlukesguild]

Yeah, those useless filler classes can be the worst (I've had great ones, too, though). It'll be weird when I start teaching 101 if I have students in the class older than me, which I most likely will; I haven't had a class yet without an old-timer. It'd feel weird giving them low grades. It probably won't be a problem, though; I've observed that the older a student, the better a student.

Well... I'd say many older students are more focused for a number of reasons. First they aren't so completely distracted by sex and alcohol... which no longer seem something quite as new and fascinating. Secondly, they are commonly paying for the classes themselves and so not quite so likely to just screw around. Thirdly... they have commonly experienced the reality of the workplace and developed a degree of self-discipline.

I had to take a class in order to renew my teaching license a couple of years back. It was an advanced drawing class which I took as an independent study. The requirements weren't exactly out of this world. About every week or two the students were expected to complete a drawing dealing with a specific problem (one- and two-point perspective, shading, the use of line only etc...). Nearly every two weeks I brought in a new "drawing" in pastel, acrylic, and gold leaf. Most of the drawings were nearly 7 foot tall, employed linear perspective and complex tessellations as well as the human figure. Nearly every drawing I brought to class was the result of 40+ hours of labor. Yet there were students who couldn't put forth 2 or 3 hours in order to complete a 9x11" drawing. Their excuse was that they were taking a full load of classes (12 credit hours). Of course I was taking two classes for 6 credit hours and teaching full-time on top of this. Nearly all the best students in the class were older students who wished they had the luxury of going back to school full time as opposed to fitting their studies on top of a full-time job.

[Revolte]

I tend to mess up on these ones, all the time. It's irritating lol

buuuuuuut, if I can get away with saying lol, then it's fine.

[kiki1982]

I do have problems in English with spelling homonyms like sweet/sweat. And sometimes great/greet, just because they can potentially have the same sound. For the rest I think I do pretty well.

Whether goes with 'What', so it's got the same structure. Weather on the other hand is a totally different thing.
Then is an adverb and than is a preposition only for comparisons.

Semi-colons are a faviorite of mine because you can cram all those nice ideas into one big loooooooooong sentence :D, as are dashes, 'cause you can cram all the ideas and additional, possibly contradictory, reminiscences, into the sentence without confusing your reader with yet more commas :willy_nilly:.

I got scolded in school for my long sentences... They had a fetish with short; I never understood it... That's maybe why I like reading old stuff. :)

[Revolte]

Whether goes with 'What', so it's got the same structure. Weather on the other hand is a totally different thing.
Then is an adverb and than is a preposition only for comparisons.



Ah crap... I forgot all about that.

[Sancho]

I do have problems in English with spelling homonyms like sweet/sweat. And sometimes great/greet, just because they can potentially have the same sound. For the rest I think I do pretty well.


All of those EA words mark a historical period in English known as the Great Vowel Shift. Most shifted to a long E sound around about 1400, like seat and beat. But, as you noted, there are a few atavistic words that retain their old pronunciation, like steak and break. It seems to match the picture I have in my mind of people in the British Isles in the year 1000: “Hey, what’d you guys do?” – “We ate the meat.” (it rhymes)

Consonants also have morphed and atrophied. Those lead-off K words (like knee and knight) used to pronounce the K. The knights in the Monty Python sketch weren’t kidding when they said, ka-nigget. Your language and mine seem to have swapped some consonants: Ws and Vs, Ds and Ts, Fs and Vs. Dutch, not surprisingly, lies somewhere between English and German. In French and English, the G and W have a good thing going on: War/Guerre, Warrantee/Guarantee, William/Guillaume.

Now, if we can just get the Canadians to say ‘about’ instead of ‘aboot’.

[cacian]

Another easily mispelt words are
there and their
and the one that are most irritating on my keyboard are the articles
to too two

[Babyguile]

The next one should be commas; when to and not to use them.

Shouldn't that be a colon because what you are doing is giving additional information? My understanding is semi-colons are used to indicate an implicit meaning between two parts of a sentence (among other uses of course) but I don't think that is what you're doing.

The next one should be commas: when to use them and when not to.

I've only recently refined my understanding of colons and semi-colons and since then I've been noticing people using ; instead of : constantly. So I want to know whether I'm just getting it wrong or not.

[Charles Darnay]

Shouldn't that be a colon because what you are doing is giving additional information? My understanding is semi-colons are used to indicate an implicit meaning between two parts of a sentence (among other uses of course) but I don't think that is what you're doing.

The next one should be commas: when to use them and when not to.

I've only recently refined my understanding of colons and semi-colons and since then I've been noticing people using ; instead of : constantly. So I want to know whether I'm just getting it wrong or not.

I actually had that debate with myself for longer than I should have. Why I settled on the semicolon is because the second clause is the clarification of the "one" in the first clause. I could have just written the first clause, but people might not have caught on to what the "one" was referring to; a lesson on when to and not to use semicolons. If I had written "next up, commas; when to use them and when not to," it would have been incorrect. Then a colon would have been required.

[Babyguile]

But are semi-colons used for clarification? I thought that was the colon's job. You're adding additional information in order to clarify what you mean in the first part of the sentence.

Unless you're using it to illustrate a contrast of ideas within a sentence, to introduce a word like 'however, or within lists with detailed information, you typically use semi-colons in place of conjunctions like 'becuase'. But your sentence doesn't need a conjuntion and it doesn't need any of the other uses I menitoned.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

A semi-colon ( ; ) is not the same thing as a colon ( : ), both of which have different uses. A colon is most commonly used before giving a list of things or ideas. Example: When you go the grocery store, please get the following things: milk, eggs, bread, and honey. A semi-colon is used to separate two independent clauses (or, to clarify, you can't have a defendant clause on one side of the semi-colon; both clauses must be complete). Example: Some things in the universe can't be explained; grammar isn't one of them. A semi-colon's main purpose is to show that the two ideas it separates are more closely related to each other than if they were separated by a period; they're part of the same sentence, so they are more closely connected.

I don't think Charles's use of the semi-colon does not work, because "when to use them and when not to" is a fragment.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I just remembered another use for semi-colons, and that is if one needs a comma within items of a list. For example: The three movies we saw were Star Wars; The Matrix; and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Since the title The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly has commas in it, separating the three movies with commas alone would make it a complicated sentence.

[Babyguile]

I don't think Charles's use of the semi-colon does not work, because "when to use them and when not to" is a fragment.

So you think it was a correct use or not?

[Charles Darnay]

I don't think Charles's use of the semi-colon does not work, because "when to use them and when not to" is a fragment.

Double negatives? No!

But you are right in that a semicolon requires two complete clauses. I tend to ignore that part of the rule.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I do, too, but I tend not to care in informal settings such as these.

And I can't believe I did the old double-negative. Such an amateurish mistake! That one does bug me.

[stlukesguild]

I got scolded in school for my long sentences... They had a fetish with short; I never understood it... That's maybe why I like reading old stuff.

I plead the same excuse myself. I read a great deal of 19th century literature laden with those voluminous sentences, pregnant with a rich and sensuous vocabulary. I never could quite gel with the terse, minimal, Modernist style of Hemingway (among others). All the poetry I read only added to my habit of employing dashes and ellipsis (what the heck is the plural of ellipsis? ellipsi? ellipsises?).

[Sancho]

Polyllipsis? Doblellipsis? Multillipsis? Now this is just getting silly.

I’m starting to see the average sentence length creep up in contemporary literature. Perhaps the Hemingway hangover has begun to abate.

[kiki1982]

Could it be ellipses? Not sure though, it depends on the origin. It is certainly crisis and crises...

[Maximilianus]

what the heck is the plural of ellipsis?
Ellipses


Could it be ellipses?
It could, and it is! :nod:

[Charles Darnay]

For those reading this thread and thinking "why do people care so much about proper spelling and grammar," just look what the Internet is doing to Mitt Romney's typo. As inane as it is, it stresses the fact that, as Henry Higgins says, "the way you talk [or write] absolutely classifies you." We shape our world around us through our words: in speech we rely on our voice to carry the meaning, while on paper it must fall to our use of clear syntax, proper punctuation, and flourishing rhetorical devises!

[Sancho]

I still think there’s such a thing as being too grammatically correct. If you regulate the language with too many rules, you kill it. And dead stuff ain’t much fun. I’ve been out of the educational system for quite some time, but I get the sense that a Grammar Nazi could destroy an otherwise enthusiastic mind. Take a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed student who’s full of excitement and ideas and put him under the tutelage of a Grammar Nazi, and within one semester he’ll be walking around campus with a vacant look in his eyes and the feeling that someone ripped out his heart and stomped that sucker flat. Something that’s written from the heart is fun to read, but you can’t write from the heart if some Grammar Nazi stomped that sucker flat – with jack boots.

To me anyway, something written with impeccable grammar usually comes off like a term paper, and I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t like to read term papers. It’s like riding around in the car with someone who insists on stopping at all of the stop signs. It’s probably safer, but it’s BORING.

That said, you probably ought to at least know all of Struck and White’s rules before you break them.

[Scheherazade]

That said, you probably ought to at least know all of Struck and White’s rules before you break them.This, I feel, sums it all up nicely.

A writer or poet should not, in my opinion, go a-rule-breaking because they cannot be bothered to master them... And then claim that "But... But... But ee cummings did it!"

As an ESOL speaker, I always feel the need to go back and edit my writing. I don't think I will ever be confident enough to play around with the rules. That chip on my shoulder weighs a ton.

[Sancho]

Scher, I've got to say I was surprised when I found out English was a second language for you.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I still think there’s such a thing as being too grammatically correct. If you regulate the language with too many rules, you kill it. And dead stuff ain’t much fun. I’ve been out of the educational system for quite some time, but I get the sense that a Grammar Nazi could destroy an otherwise enthusiastic mind. Take a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed student who’s full of excitement and ideas and put him under the tutelage of a Grammar Nazi, and within one semester he’ll be walking around campus with a vacant look in his eyes and the feeling that someone ripped out his heart and stomped that sucker flat. Something that’s written from the heart is fun to read, but you can’t write from the heart if some Grammar Nazi stomped that sucker flat – with jack boots.

To me anyway, something written with impeccable grammar usually comes off like a term paper, and I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t like to read term papers. It’s like riding around in the car with someone who insists on stopping at all of the stop signs. It’s probably safer, but it’s BORING.

That said, you probably ought to at least know all of Struck and White’s rules before you break them.
Agreed. Prose, or creative writing in general, is no place for strict formality. Still, one can be informal and still be completely grammatically correct, and thus be a good prose writer. Formal papers impose all kinds of rules that have nothing to do with grammar, but somehow certain things have been deemed "informal," like using first-person perspective, contractions, or passive voice.

Also, Charles, what Romney typo are you referring to?

[Babyguile]

My biggest gripe with grammar at the moment is the innapropriate use of commas

Oh sorry that should be:

My biggest gripe, with grammar, at the moment, is the innapropriate use of commas.

I don't even think you can prove that the above sentence is grammaticaly incorrect. Not like a spliced comma where you can use a rule to go 'aha' and wave it at someone. It's the the over-use of them.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Agreed. Overuse can make sentences clunky even if grammatically correct. I can't say I'm innocent of doing this. In high school I had the problem of not using enough commas, and then I over compensated. I haven't fully gotten away from the compensation.

[Babyguile]

Well ironically, I would have preferred it if you used a comma in this sentence because you are introducing the main part of the sentence:

In high school, I had the problem of not using enough commas.

People love to introduce their sentences in this way for some reason. If you wanted to avoid commas in that sentece why not try this:

I had the the problem of not using enough commas in high school.

You seem to think that you being in high school is the most important part of that sentence. At least that's how it reads to me.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Meh. Not that big of a deal. On another day I might have used a comma. I don't really think about it that deeply when I'm on LitNet.

[Calidore]

I don't know if it's a Victorian thing or a Dumas thing or both, but older translations of his stuff have some pretty long, comma-laden sentences. Maybe in addition to per word, he was paid by the punctuation.


Agreed. Overuse can make sentences clunky even if grammatically correct. I can't say I'm innocent of doing this. In high school I had the problem of not using enough commas, and then I over compensated. I haven't fully gotten away from the compensation.

This made me think of a pun: He used long sentences with lots of commas to compensate for having a small premise.

Well, I didn't say it was a good one.

[Sancho]

...This made me think of a pun: He used long sentences with lots of commas to compensate for having a small premise.

Well, I didn't say it was a good one.

It made me laugh.

So anyway, around here there’s a popular idiomatic expression with adverb/adjective confusion. I have a great affection for it, but others find it only worthy of their ridicule. Here’s the set up:

El Sancho swipes his card in the reader at the “10 Items or Fewer” lane at the Publix Grocery Store. The checkout girl checks her screen and says, “Hello, Mr. Sancho. How’re you doing?”
Sancho checks out the checkout girl’s plastic nametag and says, “I’m good, Kirsten, how’re you?”
Checkout girl gives Sancho the hairy eyeball and says, “I’m well.”
Sancho gets a sh*t-eating grin and says, “So then, you’re well, but I’m good. We’d make a good couple, eh?”
Checkout girl gets an alarmed look on her face and says, “I’m not allowed to flirt with the customers, sir.”
Sancho says, “Oh, alright then.”

Incidentally, I tried that expression in Spanish once, but it didn’t translate well:

Rosa (Sancho’s Spanish-speaking friend) says, “Sancho! ¿Cómo estás?”
Sancho makes a poor modifier choice, “Muy bueno, Rosita, soy muy bueno.”
Rosa gets a bemused look on her face and says, “Oh, Sancho. You know, that means something entirely different in Spanish.”
Sancho says, “Ahh.”

I got the gist of it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Yes, I don't care for the good/well differentiation. There are some rules I think are stupid. That's one of them. Others are ending sentences in a preposition. I don't see why we can't. Another is using "their" with a reference to a singular, non gender-specific person. "His/her" is too clunky.

My biggest pet peeve is double negatives. I cringe when I hear them, and I hear them often.

[Sancho]

Yes, I don't care for the good/well differentiation. There are some rules I think are stupid. That's one of them. Others are ending sentences in a proposition. I don't see why we can't. Another is using "their" with a reference to a singular, non gender-specific person. "His/her" is too clunky.

My biggest pet peeve is double negatives. I cringe when I hear them, and I hear them often.

I ain’t got no problem with no double negatives, or triple negatives, for that matter.

And if ending a sentence with a proposition were prohibited, there’d be a problem with the propagation of the species.

But the his/her thing, I now think, does sound better as their. I don’t know why, but I’m starting to notice it when someone uses the masculine preference, but I notice it even more when somebody opts for a feminine pronoun, seemingly, for no other reason than to avoid the masculine one.

[Babyguile]

I ain’t got no problem with no double negatives, or triple negatives, for that matter.

I don't know where blues music would be without those double negatives!

[Calidore]

Handy Tribune article from this morning.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/tribu/ct-tribu-words-work-cheatsheet-20120606,0,5271745,full.story

[Sancho]

The Trib is one of the last great print papers standing, eh?


I don't know where blues music would be without those double negatives!

Rock-n-Roll cain't get no satisfaction without double negatives either.

By the way, if Soy bueno doesn't work in Spanish, double negatives do.

[Sancho]

Looks like MM has been exiled. So long, old friend.

I never got a chance to ask him what he thought of sentences like:

Billy and me went to the store.

or its ne’er-do-well cousin:

The clerk at the store gave Billy and I a huge discount.

[kiki1982]

In the first case, I always have to think about the Queen's Christmas Message:

'My husband and I would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas.'

Since I started doing this (when my hubby told me) I have never said 'Billy and me went to the shop' again.

My hubby also tells his students (his colleague would hate him for that :D).

[Sancho]

Ha Ha

I still dork it up from time to time. I suppose what I’m getting at with those two sentences are the subtleties.

Both are grammatically incorrect, but the first one – Billy and me went to the store. – is generally accepted in informal conversation. Its grammatically correct version – Billy and I went to the store. – sounds a little like the speaker is putting on airs (like something the Queen might say).

With the second sentence – The store gave Billy and I a discount. – the grammar is incorrect and the speaker seems to be putting on airs. Double Dorkage.

[Scheherazade]

Let's discuss "whom"!

:banana:

[Sancho]

You would think that whom is a word whose time has passed, and yet it has shown amazing tenacity, so I’m thinking it’s here to stay.

For my money, the funniest use of the word is in that tune by The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go.

Only a British guy would go to the trouble of pronouncing the ‘m’ in whom right there.

This indecision’s bugging me
If you don’t want me set me free
Exactly whom I’m supposed to be
Don’t you know which clothes even fit me
Come on and let me know
Should I cool it or should I blow

http://youtu.be/LZk_HnE-cdU

Pretty good song, though.

[Scheherazade]

I spent hours trying to understand the function of "whom" so I shan't be giving up on it so quickly.

Incidentally, "what" (line 2) should be "want"?

PS: Agree on the song.

[Sancho]

In the words of the governer of Texas, "whoops."

[kiki1982]

Whom is easy, isn't it? Just object = whom.

And that Clash-song is grammatically incorrrect, it seems to me, as 'is' doesn't have an object, but a predicate (or whatever it's called). I know that we no longer say 'It is I', but 'It is me', but I wouldn't go so far as to say 'Whom I am supposed to be'...

Anyway, it amounts to the fact that, in effect, the part of the sentence that we feel as 'the object' is in fact anotber part of the subject. In German and Russian, it is put in the Nominative for that reason. In French it will have the same gender and number as its subject.

Wonderfully pedantic :D.

[Sancho]

That reminds me of a wonderful little grammar book:

Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English, by Patricia T. O’Conner

As for who vs. whom, since it doesn’t always pass the sounds-right test, most folks will substitute he or him into the sentence, so:

Exactly whom I’m supposed to be

Exactly he I’m supposed to be

Exactly him I’m supposed to be

Both sound awful, but the last one sounds less awful to me.

(I'm supposed to be him...? Arr, my head hurts)

[kiki1982]

Ah, yes, the personal pronouns seem to be an exception in this case. I French, you also say, 'C'est moi' and not 'C'est je'. In Dutch and German you would avoid the problem by saying (Ge) 'Ich bin es' (I it is) and not 'Es ist ich' (It is I). However, if you absolutely had to use that construction, you could never ever ever use 'Es ist ihn' (it is him), because it is wrong.

[Babyguile]

-----

[Calidore]

I spent hours trying to understand the function of "whom" so I shan't be giving up on it so quickly.


"Who" is the subject; "whom" is the object.

"Who did you go with?"

"You went with whom?"

[Sancho]

Well then, there you go. And speaking of which:

There’s a fine history of grammar in rock-n-roll. In addition to the aforementioned Clash tune, my other favorite comes from Pink Floyd. I really hate to paint any large group of people with too broad a brush, or to point my finger across the pond, but in this case it’s a good thing, so I’ll go ahead. There seems to be a national obsession over there for grammatical correctness and a penchant amongst the rock-n-roll bands for creating rock operas. Over here we have a more cavalier attitude towards grammar and favor tunes you can dance to.

Anyway, I always liked the contrast between Waters/Gilmore and the school children’s chorus in: Just Another Brick in the Wall.

Waters/Gilmore:
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone

The school-children’s chorus:
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone

It’s almost as if the school kids couldn’t quite bring themselves to confuse a subjective pronoun with an objective pronoun. That’s how I hear it, anyway. I’m sure the chorus was recorded separately in a studio and then mixed in with the band’s music later, so it probably wasn’t planned. And, of course, there were several out-takes. In the movie version, the kids say – Leave us kids alone. But on the album, I hear, quite clearly – Leave those kids alone.

At any rate, in America we’d’ve avoided the whole problem. Over here, it’s the school kids who abuse the teachers. “Silly teacher. If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding!” And as for the Clash tune, it’d’ve turned out something like this: “’xactly who I ‘spoda be”

[Scheherazade]

Well... How 'bout them apples?

[Sancho]

Hmmm-Hmmm and them peaches too, which are starting to bloom around here.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

As for "who vs. whom." I have my own method of determining which to use that works pretty well for me. I get all the "if it's an object, use 'whom'" stuff, but that's always struck me as a but complicated compared to my method. Basically, of you can answer the sentence as if it were a question with "he" or "they," use "who," and if you can answer with "him" or "them," use "whom." I use "him" and "he" rather than "her" and "she" because since "him" ends with a -m, you know it should be "whom" since it also ends with an -m.

For example.

- Who went to the store?

He/they went to the store.

- Whom did they go to the store with?

They went to the store with him/them.

[Calidore]

I like that method. And welcome back.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I like that method. And welcome back.

Thanks. :cheers2:

[kiki1982]

Behold, he hath risen! :p

And indeed, that is completely right and amounts to the same thing as the subject object-rule.

Therefore, Calidore's former post is wrong. It is 'Whom did you go with?' because you should also say, 'With whom did you go?'.

It is not because the preposition (with) is now at the other end of the ssntence, that 'who' and 'with' do not essentially belong together and so whom stays the same.

The confusion mounts when 'who' is at the beginning of the sentence (normally we start with the subject - he for example) and does not have a preposition immediately in front of it. So people do not decline it where it should be done.

I like to be pedantic :D.

[Calidore]

Welll, that just shows how long it's been since I've been in school. And me raised by an English teacher.

So, instead: "Who is on first!"

[kiki1982]

Oh, my, and I'm only 30 :eek:.

[Scheherazade]

Phew.

Never expected "whom/who" to bring about so much discussion.

I haven't had much problem with this since I was shown on a blackboard (yes, blackboard!) with couple of sentences similar to MM's examples.

The subject/object difference does the trick for me, personally.

[Babyguile]

"Who" is the subject; "whom" is the object.

"Who did you go with?"

"You went with whom?"

Both of those examples should use 'whom'. Use the method of him (whom)/he (who) mentioned before.

[Calidore]

Just thought, does this mean George Thorogood should have sung "Whom Do You Love?"

[AuntShecky]

Behold, he hath risen! :p

And indeed, that is completely right and amounts to the same thing as the subject object-rule.

Therefore, Calidore's former post is wrong. It is 'Whom did you go with?' because you should also say, 'With whom did you go?'.

It is not because the preposition (with) is now at the other end of the ssntence, that 'who' and 'with' do not essentially belong together and so whom stays the same.

The confusion mounts when 'who' is at the beginning of the sentence (normally we start with the subject - he for example) and does not have a preposition immediately in front of it. So people do not decline it where it should be done.

I like to be pedantic :D.

One more time with the Winston Churchill anecdote. When the PM was criticized for ending a sentence with a preposition, he replied, "Madame, this is one pendantry up with which I will not put!"

[kasie]

Oh, these Churchill anecdotes - that saying was supposed to have been one of the favourites of the precise Victorian nanny/governess! :smile5: