Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Grammar and Pet Peeves

Old English teachers don't die, they just decline and parse away. Some of us keep up the good fight till the very end. Therefore, I feel I just must bring to your attention that there are still objective and subjective cases in grammar today, despite of the very best efforts of the Transformational Grammar folks to pretend that just putting ideas on paper is sufficient.

For those of you who are unsure, let me clarify through a simple example of conjugating the verb be.

I am,
you are,
 he/ she/ it is,
we are,
you are,
they are

Here you have an example of a subject and a verb. The subjects are I, you, he, she, it, we, you and they (subjective case) and the verb is am, a verb of being. You could also have an action verb like pass.

I pass
you pass
he/she/it passes
We pass
you pass
they pass

Mary (subject) passes the hymn books (direct object) to Sheila and ME (object of the preposition).  (ME. NOT !!!!) To is a preposition that requires an object. You cannot imagine how many times I hear educated people misuse the pronoun I.

Pronouns in the objective case are me, you, him, them, us, you, her, it, them, whom, and whomever.

You use the objective case to receive the action performed by the subject of the sentence.
Direct objects RECEIVE the action.  (Mary struck him and me.) NOT HE AND I!!!!! 
Indirect objects answers the questions to whom? or for whom? (Mary gave him and me the books.) NOT HE AND I!!!
Prepositions take objects (Mary gave the books to him and me. NOT HE AND I. Prepositions are words like
  • aboard
  • about
  • above
  • across
  • after
  • against
  • along
  • amid
  • among
  • anti
  • around
  • as
  • at
  • before
  • behind
  • below
  • beneath
  • beside
  • besides
  • between
  • beyond
  • but
  • by
  • concerning
  • considering
  • despite
  • down
  • during
  • except
  • excepting
  • excluding
  • following
  • for
  • from
  • in
  • inside
  • into
  • like
  • minus
  • near
  • of
  • off
  • on
  • onto
  • opposite
  • outside
  • over
  • past
  • per
  • plus
  • regarding
  • round
  • save
  • since
  • than
  • through
  • to
  • toward
  • towards
  • under
  • underneath
  • unlike
  • until
  • up
  • upon
  • versus
  • via
  • with
  • within
  • without

    After which these PRONOUNS will take the OBJECTIVE CASE!!!
Thanks to http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/prepositions-list.htm

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