The I’s Have It (Obama confuses "me" and "I")

New York Times ^ | February 23, 2009 | Patricia T O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman

[reaganaut1]

When President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.

Grammar junkies.

Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”

The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”

So should the president go stand in a corner of the Oval Office (if he can find one) and contemplate the error of his ways? Not so fast.

For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either “I” or “me” as the object of a verb or preposition, especially after “and.” Literature is full of examples. Here’s Shakespeare, in “The Merchant of Venice”: “All debts are cleared between you and I.” And here’s Lord Byron, complaining to his half-sister about the English town of Southwell, “which, between you and I, I wish was swallowed up by an earthquake, provided my eloquent mother was not in it.”

It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that language mavens began kvetching about “I” and “me.” The first kvetch cited in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage came from a commencement address in 1846. In 1869, Richard Meade Bache included it in his book “Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech.”

[null and void]

“...the reek of sulphur is still here.” (to paraphrase Ugh-ho Chavez)

[WayneS]

I think it’s called “the narcissist’s dilemma”.

BOTH of those words are SOOOOOOO appealing to him, he simply MUST use them interchangeably.

[Evil Slayer]

But !!

I Won !! So I can say anything I want to !!

[WayneS]

I know I’M shocked and surprised by this development!

;^)

[6SJ7]

Wow. The Obamessiah be older than I thought him was.

Being the messiah, I'm surprised Obama does not speak in Aramaic.

[cvq3842]

I remember when he said “wreck havoc” instead of “wreak havoc” during the campaign.

Not a word from the MSM on this.

[Tax-chick]

Proper declension of pronouns is what sets us apart from the savages. That, and knowing our homophones, of course. And flush toilets.

[proud American in Canada]

So apparently, Obama is soooo smart that he speaks English as it was originally intended, and not according to the distortions of the last 200 years.

LOL! Those "olde English" classes must be listed on his transcript we're not allowed to see. ;)

Seriously, though, this is one of my pet peeves. That, and mixing up "there", "they're" and "their". Oh, and "lose" and "loose".

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

How long before IT starts using the royal WE?

[UCANSEE2]

Thanks for posting the article.

The author qoutes some of obama’s misspeaks, then to justify them, qoutes two sentences where the word ‘between’ is specifically used.

The usual way to tell if you should use “me” or “I”, is to leave out the other ‘subject’, and say the sentence.

i.e. “a very personal decision for (Michelle and) I”

“the main disagreement with (John or) I”

“graciously invited (Michelle and) I.”

One must remember that Obama has lived in environments where a different ‘language’ or ‘dialect’ is used.

One that has no ‘rules’, but instead has ‘fads’.

[what's up]

Where’s the NYT explanation of why Ottawa really should be pronounced “Iowa” a la O-Idiot?

[xjcsa]

I wonder if “I” and “Me” are used correctly in his books?

Of course they are. Bill Ayers knows how to write.

[Tex Pete]

I am sure he would get it right in his mother tongue, Arabic.

[colorado tanker]

You'd think a Columbia and Harvard educated Messiah could get this right.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

So the President was born in the 17th century?

Makes as much sense as anything else he’s said.

[conservativeharleyguy]

That's as bad as Eric Holder and his reference to “a effnik metting pot”.

I barely heard the rest of his self-pitying, chip-on-his-shoulder diatribe, because I was laughing so hard from that, I almost missed his “nation of cowards” comment.

If you only read his comments in the adoring press, you'd never know how he really said it. But, if you listen to his actual comment, you get to hear what how marginally literate he truly is.

The second most powerful C-Student in America.

[DJ Frisat]

He also occasionally misuses indefinite articles "a" and "an", for example:

'It was a unintentional omission.'

This is especially likely to happen if he inserts a mellifluous "uh" between the "a" and "unintentional".

But GWB is the uneducated moron...

[UCANSEE2]

There is a flower shop in the downtown area where I live.

For 20 years, it has had “bokays” painted on the window.

I guess they were appealing to their audience.

Had they had “bouqet” painted on there, no one would have understood what it was they were selling.

[fullchroma]

My husband and I are worried that Obama will ruin you and me.

[Rippin]

I ain’t falling for this. I don’t care about his grammar, I care about his Marxism. They wish they could get us to fight about his grammar.