The horror, the horror.......

[Are_grits_groceries]

Did the new EdSec just make a grammatical error?

Barack Obama's newly selected education secretary may need to visit a grammarian before he takes on the American education system. During his introductory remarks in Chicago today, Arne Duncan, the outgoing Chicago public schools chief, mixed up his personal pronouns. His elementary school teacher is cringing somewhere.

Find the error: "I want to thank our mutual friend John Rogers who has been a mentor and friend to me since I was ten years old. He gave my sister and I the opportunity to start a great school in the South side of Chicago..."

Answer: He should have said "my sister and me" instead of "my sister and I."

http://www.breitbart.com/detail.php?ch=BNREUTERSODD&catnum=9

Don't confirm him! Make him diagram sentences first. He has to do some quadratic equations!:sarcasm:

[lapfog_1]

1. Just ask him to spell "Potato" and read "My Pet Goat"...

if he can do both, he's confirmed!

[rurallib]

2. He should have said "my sister and me"

But he wasn't talking about you and YOUR sister. He was talking about his sister and himself.

[electron_blue]

3. Obama makes the same mistake, for whatever that's worth.

[T Wolf]

4. That "I" for "me" thing is often done by those trying to sound more sophisticated than they really

are. Drives my wife (works in a school) absolutely nuts.

[JuniperLea]

5. Think of how grammar is taught, and by whom...

I'll use myself as an example (one of the few cases where the word "myself" is actually the right choice).

When I was in third grade, and I was learning the fundamentals of English grammar, my teacher was 50 years old. That means she learned those grammar basics when she was in third grade (or earlier), and that was forty years prior. Think of how old HER teacher was, and how long ago this person learned grammar.

All that said, there was a time when the me/I choice was always thrown to the "I". This is why you find many old English literature books using "I"... some even in their titles.

[HillWilliam]

6. We were taught to remove the

noun and the conjunction and to try the sentence again to see if it sounded right.

"Juniperx is blogging with Are_Grits_Groceries and {I | me}."

"Juniperx is blogging with me." ergo

"Juniperx is blogging with Are_Grits_Groceries and me."

It's a matter of case (object of the preposition). This is an easy crutch and almost failsafe. The "with x and I" thing drives me crazy, too, although I commit enough linguistic atrocities in casual conversation (purposefully so).

But when I writes, I writes. :)

[JuniperLea]

7. I learned that trick much later...

And it's a good one! Who/whom gives people fits too. Similar simple trick applies...

"Who did you give it to?" HIM/WHOM

[HillWilliam]

9. Ah! Ah! Ah!

A preposition is not a good word to end a sentence with! :rofl:

[JuniperLea]

10. Oh, the irony! Funny, huh?

You have to make it wrong to get it right;)

Ever read "The Egg and I"? Oh, there's another thing... punctuation. The ? outside text quoted inside a sentence... another English deal. And don't get me started about the multiple rules for ellipsis! :rofl:

After years of reading 17th and 18th Russians and Brits, I had to re-learn a lot!

[HillWilliam]

11. I'm feelin' ya

I could be a the grammar-nazi, but I refuse to take on make-work for a lost cause. English is a dead language in America. I learned English well early on, adoring its rules, vast heritage, and wonderful slipperiness. Nothing taught me English, though, like taking on Spanish and French to native fluency before leaving high school, then German, Dutch, Italian, bits of Japanese and Mandarin later in life. ASL is fascinating to someone versed in spoken languages -- the complete context-switch from aural to visual is at first mind-blowing then absolutely liberating. It's the next best thing to telepathy, for my money. (Any language that doesn't require endless conjugation and declinsion gets my vote!) I really should get re-certified for NC; I put a lot of work in and I'd hate to lose it.

My reading list right now? I'm wickedly endulging myself in a compendium of Lewis Carroll, trying not to mind "do'n't" and "ca'n't". For Solstice, my beloved gifted me with that and a compendium each of Twain and Brontë; to put right behind the Carroll. (How I adore that man of mine!) There isn't a hillbilly walking who doesn't adore the slipperiness of English and a good round of whimsey. I'm fully a product of my heritage :)

As for 17th and 18th C Russians, my heart goes out to you. I haven't the patience. Beyond that, I suffered through Anna Karenina and an exhaustive analysis that and War and Peace whilst helping a neighbor and dear friend of mine through her PhD thesis on the phenomenology of Tolstoy. If it's any consolation, my Russian still sucks. (My pronunciation, I've been told, is pretty; that's no help to my comprehension, I'm afraid.) I have a talent for languages and pick them up rather easily; Russian and Polish require more practice than I ever had time or inclination. Does it count that I remember the dirty words and phrases and can rattle them off with perfect prounciation? :rofl:

Thread Goodness: Dinner conversation with my beloved finds hope that we may have someone in the Cabinet who may actually be interested in education. That has been a pet rant of mine since, oh, I don't know, RayGun. We've tried stooput. It hasn't worked. Smart did us well in the 60's. Let's do that again.

[JuniperLea]

13. If you read no further Tolstoy... you must read....

The Death of Ivan Ilych. I used it in a psych class to illustrate human ego, and it was well received.

I'm working my way through the works of Knut Hamsun. All period pieces, all set in Norway, so I'm learning a lot while being delightfully entertained.

Yes! Let's do smart again! Let's make smart happen... let's make it socially acceptable again:)

:toast:

[ieoeja]

8. Your sure Obama and him don't no what there doing? I don't see know errors their.

Spell check complete: no misspellings found.

[Gundam Macross]

12. What a looser!