MSNBC, sheesh
“He can also pretty regularly say things that drive a wedge between he and their support.”
You and *I, you and me
I was driving when I said it: “people like you and I.” And I couldn’t believe that I had said it.
Ruth Martin, stickler
“Fine grammar for a college graduate – ‘not me.’”
Geoffrey Pullum explains it all
“Pullum constantly insists that all modern lexicographers, as well as all grammarians not called Pullum, are wrong about everything, which lends his book a slightly crazed tone of ‘Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying dictionaries?’”
A review: Anne Curzan, Says Who?
Again and again I found myself at odds with her perspective. Part of what put me off, wrongly or rightly, is the book's relentless cheeriness: the “kinder, funner ” of the title, the too-frequent use of exclamation points. A larger problem is Curzan’s division of the individual psyche into “grammando” and “wordie,” both a matter not of a speaker/writer but of a listener/reader responding to other people’s words.
The Internets, sometimes wonderful
A flurry of visits from the Czech Republic.
John McWhorter on prepositions
John McWhorter in The New York Times, stating what ought to be obvious: “The ‘Rule’ Against Ending Sentences With Prepositions Has Always Been Silly.”
How to improve writing (no. 115)
One of Joe and my favorite parts about being on the campaign trail is meeting supporters just like you.
Whom is not calling
In yesterday’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, the clue “Receptionist’s pronoun” takes the answer WHOM. The answer appears to play on the well-known formula of telephone etiquette: “Whom should I say is calling?” The pronoun who, not whom is what’s appropriate there. I think the puzzle’s constructor, Matthew Sewell, must know that, but not every solver will.
Dustin pronouns
In today’s Dustin: Hayden speaks out against standardized tests and learns a valuable lesson about pronouns.
Scotch, bourbon, and radio English
“But the Manleighs are a cinch to want Scotch. People in show business, you know what I mean, those kind always drink Scotch.”
“But” speaks
Alexandra Petri, writing in The Washington Post (gift link): “The word ‘But’ asks that it not appear in these sentences.”
Oops
“If me and my co-counsel”: a lawyer for Kenneth Chesebro, in a televised hearing from a Fulton County courthouse just now.
Linus’s whom
Linus corrects Sally.
A triple double
The double-negatives in a row.
From an interview with Bryan Garner
How did a teenager fall in love with books about English usage?
MSNBC, sheesh
“The president said that him and his team are fully cooperating.”
On the conjunction train
From YouTube user blakrootz: “‘Conjunction Junction’ Model Train.”
Red Pen
The first episode (forty-four minutes) is ostensibly about who and whom, but it’s really two friends talking, and their talking goes all over the place: Christopher Columbus, bad reviews of the Sistine Chapel, commercialism at Egypt’s pyramids, a Geocities fan page for Rage Against the Machine, Jay McInerney’s tweets, and looting at Duane Reade stores, with none of those topics touching upon who or whom.
Word of the day: fanboy
Many a teacher will know fanboys as a mnemonic to help students remember the seven coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
NPR, sheesh
“As him and his aides think about this.”
A critical reader
I’m a member of the panel of critical readers for the forthcoming fifth edition of Garner’s Modern English Usage.
Positive anymore at the pump
“Lot of rigmarole just to get fuel anymore.”
Thel’s usage
Verb choice in The Family Circus.
Copyediting the crossword
A count noun takes “number.”
Sluggo’s singular they
From 1949, a nice use of singular “they.”
Lou’s who
A security guard corrects Lou Grant.
NBC, sheesh
Price of eggs soar ahead of Easter:” a chyron, as seen on NBC Nightly News tonight.
A fused participle in the comics
“I don’t think my boyfriend would like you hitting on me.”
Chicago pronouns
A Chicago Manual of Style quiz: “Who, Me?” It’s about subject and object pronouns.