Originally posted by LiveMusic:
Just he and his guitar

Just him and his guitar

Which one is correct?

Originally posted by LiveMusic:
Hey, you're pretty good! I thought it was "just him and his guitar" but I saw this in a venue newsletter.

Originally posted by theblue1:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by LiveMusic:
[qb]
If so, in many areas, you'll find yourself wondering about the proper use of "deze" and "doze."

As in: "Dese are duh scumbags what tried to sneak in duh backdoor. You want I should break doze legs of dere's, Big Louie?"


Or, wait... should dat be "dem legs"...?

Originally posted by blackpig:
It all depends on the correct utilisation of active and passive voice. For example, "John shot the dog." is active voice. But "The dog shot John." is passive voice. Or something like that.

Originally posted by force:
He and his guitar showed up...

It was just him and his guitar...

Originally posted by fantasticsound:
It was he (I know this sounds like it might be right, but would you turn to the cop, point at the suspect and yell, "It was HE!". Not if you want to use correct grammar. )

Originally posted by blackpig:
"The dog was shot by John." This is passive voice and is quite correct. "John was shot by the dog" is also passive but is quite impossible and therefore cannot be considered correct English. I do know a man who was shot by a fish (it's a long story). Yes, I am slightly inebriated. Burp etc.

Originally posted by geekgurl:

Quote:

Originally posted by fantasticsound:
It was he (I know this sounds like it might be right, but would you turn to the cop, point at the suspect and yell, "It was HE!". Not if you want to use correct grammar. )

ooh, this is fun! Actually, I'm afraid that "It was he" is actually correct grammar; but we never say this!.....

Originally posted by Dan South:
What's the difference between toward and towards? It towards simply a colloquialism?

Originally posted by Dan South:
How about afterward and afterwards? Is there a difference? Are they equivalent?

Originally posted by Dan South:
And how about some of those obscure past participles?

---> I swam across the river this morning. My friend Mary has swum it many times.

---> I drank the two shots that she bought for me. I had drunk too much already.

Originally posted by geekgurl:
In the offices I work at

Originally posted by blackpig:
My own pet hate is the superfluous apostrophe - "book's for sale", "car's going cheap", that sort of thing. I can't really figure out what's going on here; it seems that people are giving themselves extra work in communicating by making the langauge more cumbersome. It's one thing for a language to evolve through convenience (look at how unwieldy English from a century ago appears by today's standards) but language should never be allowed to evolve through ignorance.

Originally posted by geekgurl:
John O., should I believe you or my English teacher?
Oh, definitely your teacher---nothing you learn in school could be wrong...
Believe me (or, if you prefer, myself ), because I too am well versed in the intricacies of language. A pro writer for years w/ a BA in English (really useful, that! )...but let's not try to best one another.
People disagree & things do change in languages regularly. They evolve along the lines of how people actually speak, even when those uses are considered incorrect by prior standards.
A speaker of Old English would hardly know what was being said by people on the streets of London today---& not just because of new words; even the words they used would be enunciated differently & in many cases used differently.
A similar thing happens with the sound/enunciation of words. Note how speakers in the USA have shifted to giving the letter "o" a sound that's like a short "a". Every night I hear news anchors, etc. (& we'd guess they are coached in "proper" speech), refer to the states of Aregon (located N of California) or Flarida. Oddly the second "o" in Aregon remains unaltered or sounds like an "e" or "i".

RE: "this is he" vs. "this is him" ... This has nothing to do with active/passive nor a social "we" and I never said it did on either count.
True but others mentioned various things of those sorts.

It has to to with what Blue1's example shown in his post, the structure of that particular sentence ("X is X"). I truly don't think this is "inflated speech" at all, but that there is a rule behind it. And that's what I'm trying to find. Anyone??
As before, the priciple in this case would be as I described: test it in the same way as any other grouping of nouns/pronouns; the one that sounds best (or is most clear) alone is the way to go.

Your question below that about extensions is a linguistics question, not a grammar question. A minor quibble. Linguistics, grammar, semantics...all are intertwined .

And incase you're wondering who the heck I think I am, well, I am a "professional-level" grammarian; doesn't mean I'm not wrong sometimes, but I do earn part of my living from my training and experience in this field.

John says: "Ultimately we must recall, however, that, like music, languages are constantly evolving (or at least changing ) &, as with music theory, the "rules" are malleable & need to focus on communicating the thoughts rather than slavishly fitting some abstracted idea. "

In this light, your bringing up "myself" vs. "me" is interesting. Mainly rules of usage are malleable; of structure, not so much.
Here I must disagree. The structural rules of one language are often adapted by those learning a new one (like emigrants learning English in NYC) & often then become commonplaces in that tongue as they spread.
Besides the example of Latin pronunciation rules being reinterpreted by speakers of English & applied to newly coined words that I cited ("photograph" extensions being given varied syllabic accents), consider how placement of active/passive clauses vary in, for ex., Spanish or French or Yiddish compared to English & how these influences drift into common usage for English.
If you're familiar w/ the Gullah dialects of the SE USA, (which are the roots of what's referred to as "Black English"), you can see exactly what I mean.
Language structures from one language are transferred because because people, though learning new languages, are still thinking in their old language & follow the grammatic practices they've used all their lives.

Reflexive pronouns have uses that have been deemed unpopular usage, though not necessarily improper. Are you saying because it's no longer in fashion that a grammatically correct use should be deemed wrong? Webster's dictionary actually has a very interesting commentary on that if you're interested.
Although I have my own preferences[*], I long ago gave up on the idea that there're any unalterable principles in language, in the same way that Western music theory is not the same as the in 15th C. (or even as it was only 100 years ago).


Otherwise, I'm sure we've lost most people to an abyss of boredom, where this is going. Sorry about that, if it's true, all.

Originally posted by John O. Lennon:

However, the world rolls on...

Originally posted by geekgurl:

Quote:

Originally posted by fantasticsound:
It was he (I know this sounds like it might be right, but would you turn to the cop, point at the suspect and yell, "It was HE!". Not if you want to use correct grammar. )

ooh, this is fun! Actually, I'm afraid that "It was he" is actually correct grammar; but we never say this! It's one of those exceptions: when answering the phone, and someone says, "is Neil home?" what to you say?

"this is he," or "this is him". Guess what? "This is he" is correct! Maddening, I know.

Consider Blue1's example/explanation RE: "who is who":

Who (2) is equivalent to the subject, who (1).

The other one that causes me nightmares is, "if I were you ..." but that isn't proper if "you" is not the predicate from what I know (in other words, "if I were her" is not correct, but "if I was her" is, because correct conjugation is "you were, she was ...")

Blue1, buddy, my comrade in all things grammar: help me out here. What is up with these exceptions? Or did I get any wrong? Any insight??