WR presents: English lessons from a Foreigner™ (Probably rolling?)

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#1

First up: The widespread use of “…and I”, especially as a way to end a sentence! How exciting.

It is really quite rare that “…and I” is the correct way to end a sentence. This is because “I” is the subject pronoun, while “me” is the object pronoun. But what does this mean, you ask? (And if you didn’t, you probably should be asking tbh.)

The only acceptable scenario in which to end a sentence with “…and I” (as in, “my boyfriend and I”, etc) is if it would be possible to continue the sentence with for example “are going” or are performing some other form of action. And even then, it’s pretty sloppy sentence construction if you ask me. If you can’t do this, then it should definitely be “me” and not “I”. Ie., “Tom received that present from my boyfriend and me”.

Another way to remember this is that if “…and I” could be replaced with “us”, then it’s “me” you’ll want to use. If “…and I” could be replaced with “we”, then “I” is the right choice. And I’m sure you’ll agree that “we” is an odd word to finish a sentence.

Of course, “…and I” is used mid-sentence as well. In this case, there is definitely a better shot of being correct if you use the subject pronoun “I”. For example: “My boyfriend and I are going to the park”, ie. it could be replaced with “We are going to the park”. However, an incorrect use of this mid-sentence would be “Tom is taking Mary and I to the park”. Tom is the subject in this sentence, and “Mary and I” forms the object and could thus be replaced with “us”. Therefore it should be “Mary and me”.

In conclusion: Ending a sentence, or replacing “me”, with the subject pronoun “I” is not clever and fancy, it’s sloppy at best and in most cases completely incorrect and makes you sound like a pretentious twat.

Any questions?

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#2

Just me, myself and me

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#3

Yeah, why are you worrying about this when there are cunts using “draw” when they mean “drawer”?

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#4

Do we have any homework?

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#5

Also how do you feel about the use of “text” as a past tense of “to send an SMS”?

#6

I’ll let lisa stanfield know

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#7

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone end a sentence with and I.

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#8

Those people are just beyond saving though. But I have a small hope that by calling the “…and I” people out and explaining to them that they are wrong and look silly, some of them might actually change their ways.

#9

Lots of people do it on here and elsewhere. Specifically: “…my partner and I”.

#10

Used to do this as a teenager. Have since become an adult.

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#11

Ah. I’ve obviously not been looking out for it. I’ll be more vigilant in future, thanks for the tip off.

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#12

I just use the rule that it’s the same as if it’s just you on your own.

i.e. “Tom received that present from me.”
“Tom is taking me to the park.”

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#13

It’s all WhatsApp these days anyway, isn’t it.

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#14

More of a FB Messenger gal myself

#15

You’d think more people would be able to do this!?

#16

You wouldn’t say “I Messenger her last night to say…”, would you? That would be ridiculous. And yet…

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#17

An additional concern in English is that there are special rules for pronouns in compound subjects. Although English has morphological case distinctions in pronouns (e.g. I vs. me ), grammatical case is not a living characteristic of the spoken language, and hence the case-based terms subjective case (e.g. for I ) vs. objective case (e.g. for me ) are misleading.

tl;dr English is messed up yo

#18

In an inverse of this, I was looking at my mouthwash the other day trying to decypher its words, when I saw the word tandvlees which I understand as teeth meat, which I assume means gums, but made me chuckle nonetheless.

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#19

thought this was going to be advice from Jackie Chan

#20

…and this is how YOU can contribute to making it LESS messed up!

1 Like