We all have those "gotcha!" words or phrases
which cause us to cringe when we hear or read them.
My "Arghhhh!" moment is
when I hear a speaker (which happens more often than
in writing) misusing the "I" and "me"
pronouns.
You would be surprised how often we hear
it. And very often from well educated speakers. I
first shared my angst over this "Arghhhh!"
moment in 2007, in 2010, in 2014, and in 2018. And
it seems that in 2022 is an appropriate time for another revisit of
that blog.
Not sure if it is because our public schools are becoming more and more
Indoctrination Centers instead of Educational Centers. When I went to
school, back in the Prehistoric Days of the 1950s, our concentration was
on Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic. There was even a song which
immortalized our Education System back then:
School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hickory stick!
Today I am afraid those words would most likely be:
School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Racism and Riotin' and What gender are you?
Taught to the tune of the Progressive, Socialist teacher, too!
This is my blog from 2018 and folks, more and more, are sticking their "I" in my "Eye":
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Let me share with you a writing I did back in 2007, 2010, and 2014. "Why," you ask? Because it seems that no
one listened to me then. It is amazing how many
speakers I hear, and writers I read - who should
know better, yet do not seem to know when to use
the pronouns "I" and "me."
Matter of fact, it seems that today I see and hear those
pronouns confused more often now than I did back in 2007.
So, since I read a lot (books, magazines, e-mail,
Facebook, etc.) of writing from other
folks, to help you keep your "I" out of my
"eye" - let me offer this wee bit of
grammar advise, just once more:
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IS
YOUR AUDIENCE AN "Arghhhh!"
AUDIENCE, OR AN "Ahhhh!"
AUDIENCE?
By Bill Gray, Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007
In the
mid-1960s, I had a friend who worked as a
secretary at Boeing in Seattle. It drove her
totally nuts when she heard a person use the
non-word "irregardless." Pulling her
hair, she would tell me, "There is no such
word as IRREGARDLESS! The word is REGARDLESS,
irregardless of what a person thinks!"
I have the
same hair pulling urge when I hear a person use
the wrong pronoun "I" when that person
should be using "me." You would be
amazed at how often I have heard otherwise
highly intelligent, highly educated people - in
the pulpit, on radio, on television, in person,
(now on Facebook) - doing this.
Yesterday,
to my amazement, I heard one of my favorite
Bible teachers, Dr. Chuck Missler, commit this "fingernail
scraping on the blackboard"
offense twice in one sentence. As my role
model, Charlie Brown, would say, "Arghhhh!"
I cannot
tell you exactly what Dr. Missler was teaching,
for the distraction over his "I" was total.
However, he said something like, "That is
totally foreign to you and I. Scripture tells
us that this is not right for you and I."
"Arghhhh!"
Now, most
likely, many people will not even notice this
mistake, nor even care. But, for a person who
enjoys writing, a person who enjoys using words
to paint ideas and thoughts - that is analogous
to an artist using bright red paint when the
scene being painted calls for a pastel blue or
yellow. I know, I know. Some Friends will ask,
"So, what difference does this make?"
And to those Friends, it makes no difference.
However, when a speaker is working hard to reach
"everyone" in his/her audience, the
difference can be a lost or broken train of
thought for some, if not many, in that audience
- as happened to me yesterday while listening to
Dr. Missler teach.
Especially
when the error is so easy to avoid. "Pray
tell, Bill, how do I avoid this horrendous
mistake which so grates upon your ears?"
I'm glad
you asked.
This
mistake happens most frequently when a writer or
speaker is using a compound sentence. A
compound sentence is one which is composed of
two or more main clauses but no subordinate
clauses.
"Bill,
Bill, speak English, please!"
Okay, a
main clause if one which has a subject and a
verb, and can stand alone, i.e., "That is
totally foreign to you" and "That is
totally foreign to me." And that
is how you may test the sentence to see if you
are using the correct pronouns.
When we
break Dr. Missler's compound sentence, "That
is totally foreign to you and I" down into
its two main clauses, we get, "That is
totally foreign to you" and "That is
totally foreign to I." Would you say,
"That is totally foreign to I"? No! You
would say, "That is totally foreign
to ME."
By the same
token, Dr. Missler's sentence, "Scripture
tells us that this is not right for you and I"
- when broken down into two main clauses will
read, "Scripture tells us that is not right
for you" and "Scripture tells us that
is not right for I." How long will it
take your audience to get a glazed, void look on
their faces when you use sentences such as, "Scripture
tells us that is not right for I"?
No, no,
no! It only sound right when you say, "Scripture
tells us that is not right for ME."
In the
future, so that there will be no glassy eyed
people in your audience; so that there will be
no one sitting in your audience screaming,
"Arghhhh!" - please break the sentence
apart in your mind to test it, before you
allow it to escape from your mouth. Then,
we can all sit back and listen to you speak,
with a smile, and a soothing, "Ahhhh!"
Just a
thought. Share this with your Friends,
Relatives, Associates, and Neighbors
- all your FRANs. That way, possibly we
will see far fewer people sitting in audiences
with large patches of hair missing. Those are
the "Arghhhh!" people. And we will
experience far more smiling, hair in place,
"Ahhhh!" people in the audiences.
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God bless, have
a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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