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Help With Grammar

Fellow Traveler

Illuminator
Fellow Traveler
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
3,566
Its been a long time since I studied Grammar but I'm sure there are people here who will know if I am right or not. I keep hearing what sounds like an overuse of the 2d person and I expression. For example one of the guys on Dual Survival must say the "Cody and I" dozens of time each show and it makes no difference what the subject may be. He may say " The weather will be tough for Cody and I". I would say Cody and me because the weather is the subject. Am I wrong? I hear the overuse of this by many well educated people as well. I hazard a guess that educators at the primary level are very concerned that we not say "me and Cody" and drill in the Cody and I.
 
Fellow Traveler said:
I hazard a guess that educators at the primary level are very concerned that we not say "me and Cody" and drill in the Cody and I.
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They're not very concerned about it. It is way down on the list of pedagogical priorities.

Language is a living thing, not an artifact to be preserved in some imagined pristine state.
 
First, always put the other person first: "Cody and me", not "me and Cody".

Second, split it up. You'd say "The weather will be bad for Cody," and "The weather will be bad for me," so you'd say "The weather will be bad for Cody and me." You wouldn't say "The weather will be bad for I," so saying "The weather will be bad for Cody and I," is incorrect.
 
"Cody and me is correct." The easy way to check this is to eliminate Cody.
"The weather will be tough for Cody and I." becomes "The weather will be tough for I." which obviously should be "The weather will be tough for me."
Now if we could just get people to distinguish between "there," "their" and "they're."
 
Fellow Traveler said:
Its been a long time since I studied Grammar but I'm sure there are people here who will know if I am right or not. I keep hearing what sounds like an overuse of the 2d person and I expression. For example one of the guys on Dual Survival must say the "Cody and I" dozens of time each show and it makes no difference what the subject may be. He may say " The weather will be tough for Cody and I". I would say Cody and me because the weather is the subject. Am I wrong? I hear the overuse of this by many well educated people as well. I hazard a guess that educators at the primary level are very concerned that we not say "me and Cody" and drill in the Cody and I.
Click to expand...
A great many of what people think of as the rooolz of grammar were made up out of whole cloth.

For example, many regard a split infinitive as a major grammatical sin. It isn't. Some bloke just made it up in the 19th century just because he felt like it. It has no more standing than a split nominative, which, AFAIK, has nobody stamping their little grammar nazi feet.
 
arthwollipot said:
First, always put the other person first: "Cody and me", not "me and Cody".

Second, split it up. You'd say "The weather will be bad for Cody," and "The weather will be bad for me," so you'd say "The weather will be bad for Cody and me." You wouldn't say "The weather will be bad for I," so saying "The weather will be bad for Cody and I," is incorrect.
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+1
 
Fellow Traveler said:
Its been a long time since I studied Grammar but I'm sure there are people here who will know if I am right or not. I keep hearing what sounds like an overuse of the 2d person and I expression. For example one of the guys on Dual Survival must say the "Cody and I" dozens of time each show and it makes no difference what the subject may be. He may say " The weather will be tough for Cody and I". I would say Cody and me because the weather is the subject. Am I wrong? I hear the overuse of this by many well educated people as well. I hazard a guess that educators at the primary level are very concerned that we not say "me and Cody" and drill in the Cody and I.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, you are right. Sometimes you will hear a perfectly good, "The weather will be tough for Cody and me." only for someone to "correct" this to "Cody and I". This type of hypercorrection is sometimes because the person saying it thinks they are sounding posher and more correct than the person they are correcting while actually getting it wrong.

However, while the person "correcting" "he gave it to Cody and me" to "Cody and I", is wrong, it is arguably wrong to think "Cody and I" is wrong to begin with as in everyday language usage it is very common and therefore is descriptively perfectly acceptable. This also goes for reversing the order of the subjects to "me and Cody". This is also perfectly acceptable in general use.
 
arthwollipot said:
First, always put the other person first: "Cody and me", not "me and Cody".

Second, split it up. You'd say "The weather will be bad for Cody," and "The weather will be bad for me," so you'd say "The weather will be bad for Cody and me." You wouldn't say "The weather will be bad for I," so saying "The weather will be bad for Cody and I," is incorrect.
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-1, or even -2, for reasons I have outlined above.
 
Fellow Traveler said:
Its been a long time since I studied Grammar but I'm sure there are people here who will know if I am right or not. I keep hearing what sounds like an overuse of the 2d person and I expression. For example one of the guys on Dual Survival must say the "Cody and I" dozens of time each show and it makes no difference what the subject may be. He may say " The weather will be tough for Cody and I". I would say Cody and me because the weather is the subject. Am I wrong? I hear the overuse of this by many well educated people as well. I hazard a guess that educators at the primary level are very concerned that we not say "me and Cody" and drill in the Cody and I.
Click to expand...
Check out the site grammer girl.
 
I disagree that grammar is a free-for-all, and that the rules for written English should change arbitrarily based on the way words are spoken. Written and spoken language are already quite different, and the same rules apply to both. This is why when you listen to someone on a podcast, you can almost always tell when they're reading from a preprepared script.

It is easier to read good grammar than it is to try and interpret bad grammar. Most of us read good grammar without having to think about it. Relax the rules of grammar, and reading comprehension slows down.

Of course, it depends greatly on your target audience.
 
Speaking of common usage becoming accepted: I was taught to never end a sentence with a preposition but that always seemed like a silly rule. So I end mine as I please. Especially the word upon. EG: "I don't know if Cody can be depended upon".
 
It is wrong because "Cody and me" (the correct usage) is the object of the preposition "for"; in Latin it would be the dative case, in English it's objective. It has nothing to do with the verb or the main sentence structure.

Minoosh said:
They're not very concerned about it. It is way down on the list of pedagogical priorities.
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Funny - we spent at least 4 years in English class parsing and diagramming sentences. Sr. Mary Caligula saw to it.
 
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shadron said:
It is wrong because "Cody and me" (the correct usage) is the object of the preposition "for"; in Latin it would be the dative case, in English it's objective. It has nothing to do with the verb or the main sentence structure.



Funny - we spent at least 4 years in English class parsing and diagramming sentences. Sr. Mary Caligula saw to it.
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Why should 19th century buffons decide that 2nd century rules apply to a 10th century language?
 
arthwollipot said:
Written and spoken language are already quite different, and the same rules apply to both.
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Then why apply the same rules to both? Conversational English is different than formal English, and in any case the "rules" are largely imaginary.

arthwollipot said:
This is why when you listen to someone on a podcast, you can almost always tell when they're reading from a preprepared script.
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Preprepared? Why not "prepared script" or even "a script"? The connotation of preparedness is implicit in all of these constructions.

arthwollipot said:
It is easier to read good grammar than it is to try and interpret bad grammar. Most of us read good grammar without having to think about it. Relax the rules of grammar, and reading comprehension slows down.
Click to expand...

"Try to interpret," please, vs. "Try and interpret." It doesn't matter; the phrase communicates, and I don't see any evidence that reading comprehension is compromised by relaxed grammar. What do you base that statement on? (Or, "On what do you base this statement?") ;)

arthwollipot said:
Of course, it depends greatly on your target audience.
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The OP is correct from a prescriptive point of view. I don't have anything against good grammar. But I understand "Larry the Cable Guy" just fine. Or "just finely," I suppose.
 
shadron said:
Funny - we spent at least 4 years in English class parsing and diagramming sentences. Sr. Mary Caligula saw to it.
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You are right, that is funny. I'm not sure if it's "funny ha-ha" or weird funny.

There are prescriptive standards, but in the grand scheme of things, a dynamite writer with grammar issues is more compelling than a person with perfect grammar and nothing to say.
 
Fellow Traveler said:
Its been a long time since I studied Grammar but I'm sure there are people here who will know if I am right or not. I keep hearing what sounds like an overuse of the 2d person and I expression. For example one of the guys on Dual Survival must say the "Cody and I" dozens of time each show and it makes no difference what the subject may be. He may say " The weather will be tough for Cody and I". I would say Cody and me because the weather is the subject. Am I wrong? I hear the overuse of this by many well educated people as well. I hazard a guess that educators at the primary level are very concerned that we not say "me and Cody" and drill in the Cody and I.
Click to expand...
Ah, I'm 100% with you here! I'm wondering whether I shall have to train myself not to wince every time I hear that '... and I', instead of 'me'.
 
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