Just tonight in the newspaper I again read, "It is me". Now, we all have our grammar idiosyncracies (Morgan's is "I wish I was..")--that is, those grammar mistakes that are like fingernails scratching on the blackboard. This mistake is one of those for me. Yet, some people tell me that "It is me" or "We are them" have become acceptable. Not to me! Comments? What grammar mistakes drive you up the wall?

So long as we still have the objective case, "It is I" will remain correct. In some other languages, it does appear that the equivalent of "me" is proper. For example, "C'est moi" is correct, not "C'est je." Perhaps that's why we're supposed to hate the French - or is it why so many of us try to emulate them? Moi ne sais pas.

A grammatical plumber from Skye
Was plumbing a girl on the sly
Said the girl, "Stop your plumbing
There's somebody coming."
Said the plumber, still plumbing, "'Tis I."

A nasty old driller named Miller
Was a driller whom women deplored.
He would drill and would drill,
And himself he would thrill,
But his women were thoroughly bored.

Still another variant of what we've seen!

Aha, I have yet another grammatical error, from one of my favorites (as reported from QT in Chicago Sun Times):

Bush visited a school in Florida where the system is run by a retired Air Force major general. Bush is quoted as saying, "I see that you got you a general running the school system."

QT's marvelous commentary: "And they probably got them some English teachers who....
No. Let's try it another way. Just one small request: Could the president, while conveying a folksy image, please put a hold on the Texan Ebonics while speaking in front of schoolchildren? Thanks."

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Originally posted by Kalleh: "the Texan Ebonics"

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Interesting, because according to the dictionary "ebonics" specifically means the nonstandard form of American English spoken by some American Black people. (In fact, on checking I found that the word ebonics is a blend of ebony and phonics.)

This is the first time I've seen "ebonics" used to mean any other non-standard vernacular. Is that usage familiar to others?

Maybe Texan "argot" might be better

Richard English

One of my own pet hates is the use of myself where people have risen above their level of education and cannot tell whether to use the "John and I" construction or "John and me", but know they'll commit a faux pas.

Of course the correct test of this is to remove "John and" and to see if the sentence makes sense. 'John and I went swimming' becomes 'I went swimming' which is perfectly grammatical. 'Mark joined John and me at the table afterwards' is also correct and can be tested in the same way.

Now do it with the manager-speak 'John and myself went swimming' and you're left with gobbledegook.

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One of my own pet hates is the use of myself where people have risen above their level of education and cannot tell whether to use the "John and I" construction or "John and me", but know they'll commit a faux pas.

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As shufitz would happily tell you, this is a serious issue for me! I can't tell you how many times I have said "Joe and I" and he says "who??????"! I seem to be stuck in the "and I" mode, even though it should be "and me".

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No. Let's try it another way. Just one small request: Could the president, while conveying a folksy image, please put a hold on the Texan Ebonics while speaking in front of schoolchildren? Thanks."

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Dadgummit, Kalleh, you just don't understand how difficult it is to rise above the Texbonics! My best friend from high school ended up living in Japan for about five years and then moved to Boston, where he's lived since. He doesn't have a particularly strong Texas accent--in fact, he barely has one at all. A few months ago in a meeting at work, they were discussing how to deal with a problem. He was horrified to hear the words, "You know what you might COULD do..." come out of his mouth.
His coworkers just stopped and stared at him.

So do you think it really was Texan ebonics? I thought it was just plain stupidity.....but then as Shufitz will be the first to tell you, I am a bit biased!

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I can't tell you how many times I have said "Joe and I" and he says "who??????"!

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Ahhhh, Morgan, now you know my problem!!!

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Originally posted by shufitz:
This is the first time I've seen "ebonics" used to mean any other non-standard vernacular. Is that usage familiar to others?

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I haven't seen the term though I do like it. One major drawback, though, is that its use could easily be perceived as racist. This ties in with another thread (the demise of words like "niggardly" in today's super-sensitive PC environment) but as far as I'm concerned, it's all a matter of intent.

If I intend to call the President an idiot, I simply do so (AND, I might add, I do on a steady and regular basis) despite what chilling effect that the Patriot Act* has had on any free speech that doesn't happen to support Bush and his cronies.

*(This is a MAJOR, MAJOR political pet peeve of mine that I won't go into here. This is, of course, a word- [and, occasionally, beer-] board so I'll only say that I absolutely loathe that title! If you are against any aspect of this often repulsive legislation, the implication is that you are far less than a patriot. Suffice to say that President John Adams, with his Alien and Sedition Acts of the early 1800's, made criticsm against the President a crime, a turn of events that I fear our current White House resident would feel all too at home with.)