Correct Grammar (was Open Email to Yahoo Feedback/Try Yahoo Investor Relat

[justcarol67]

"davewitley" wrote:
> > 
> > Um, why is that bad grammar?  It's slightly better usage to 
> > say "Russell and me", but I don't think he violated any 
> grammatical 
> > rule, and there might be an extraneaous reason for the order he 
> used.
> > 
> 
> Tonks now:
> I know that younger people these days speak that way, but it is 
> WRONG. And I just hate to see the language go downhill like this.  
> This particular thing is one of my pet peeves.  It is an insult to 
> every teacher, if you ask me.  I complained to a teacher friend of 
> mine and she said that maybe the language was changing.  Well it is 
> not changing for the better!!  I would never hire someone that spoke
that way.  And while I am on the subject, I often hear people 
> say:  "I seen".  It is "I have seen" or I've seen, or "I saw".  I 
> can't tell you the number of times that I have heard people, even on
TV, say that.  It just erks me.  I am not saying that my writing is
100% perfect, but in day to day conversation or written information,
people should at least know better than to say "me and Joe".  <snip>



Carol responds:
As several people have pointed out, there's nothing *technically*
wrong with "me and Russell" in this context--the objective case is
correct. But people over the age of, say, forty, were taught to put
"I" or "me" after the other name or names, not as a matter or correct
grammar so much as of standard, or at least polite, usage. In other
words, you put the other person's name before the first-person pronoun
out of courtesy.

Now if the blogger had said "Russell and myself," my hair would be
standing on end. I hate it when people aren't sure whether to say "I"
or "me," so they subtitute "myself." Even Dumbledore, or I should say
JKR, does it. "Myself" is intensive or reflexive, period, and should
not be used unless the subject of the sentence is "I."

Speaking of grammar going downhill (and I'm a prescriptivist, sorry!),
I was asked by a teenager selling magazines the other day, "Has any
other kids came by?" Cringe!

Carol