Bwaa, actually "it is I" is the proper grammar. But nobody uses it anymore. English still does work like that, it's just fallen out of common usage. So technically everybody is being grammatically incorrect, but it's so much in the day-to-day vernacular that only professors and uptight people care. I don't care, but it isn't ungrammatical. :O
Walk up to a 8 year old kid and ask them what they think about 'It is I'. If it really were still grammatically acceptable, then 'it is we' and 'it is they' would sound good too. And they don't. It's only grammar traditionalists and grammarians who insist on it being ~correct~ still. Like French! In French it used to be 'it is I', but then it shifted to 'it is me', too. Cases were rid of, sentence structure became fixed etc. etc. etc.. In this case English isn't your average Germanic language. /nerd
ETA: The goats were pretty epic. XD It's nice taking them out to the public from time to time.
That's what I mean about common usage! Plus, walk up to any 8 year old (or 18 year old, or 28 year old) English speaker (at least, in America) and you will get some of the most hideous grammar knowledge and fails ever. We don't teach grammar here very well, even very basic concepts. :\ But when you've got linking verbs or the words than or as, the in-place English grammar rule is that you use subject forms of pronouns after them; "I, she, he, they, we" and not "me, her, him, them, us".
I'm totally not saying that it's wrong to use the 'me' construction, because it's so common that it might as well be the accepted one, but "it is I" isn't grammatically incorrect. :)
I didn't say it was grammatically incorrect, but that it's grammatically unacceptable. It's still correct in some kind of English, somewhere, maybe. In books? :P
idk. My linguistics-tuned brain insists that people know their mother tongue perfectly, and that it's always just the grammarians who fall behind the times. XD
It's not unacceptable either. It just sounds weird to anybody who doesn't know the rule, which has got to be about 99% of this country. Usually you hear it on the phone, where people will say 'this is she/he' or 'it is I' (more of the former, less of the latter). It's correct, but basically unused these days, but the rule hasn't really changed. But we do this with English - use it wrong until the wrong becomes right. Grammarians pretty much accept the wrong construction now, but very technically it is the incorrect way.
Oh my gosh, no, nobody knows proper English grammar in America. When I run across people who actually know grammar rules and don't just go by 'well, saying it this way sounds wrong' I practically faint. I have to try and stop myself from correcting my friends' grammar all the time because I know I would come off as this really obsessive compulsive obnoxious person. :D
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. xD You're talking like a grammarian, and I'm talking like a linguist. It's two different lingos. Grammarians think that it's possible to 'fix' people's grammar, while linguists know think that you can't teach a person their own native language past a certain age. The 'it is I'/'It is s/he' is a usage that's all but extinct other than hyper-corrective snobs.
People know the rules of their grammar even if they don't know how to explain them. That's their native language, ffs! XD
{in other words: I'm a descriptivist, you're a prescriptivist.}
I think I'm not explaining what I mean very well? I'm not saying I want to 'fix' or even think we should 'fix' this particular construction ("it is I" vs "it is me") but what I am saying is that English grammar rules, as you would learn them out of a book here in this country, would teach you "it is I". But people here are not taught grammar out of grammar books (or it's extremely rare to be, I've noticed), when we go to English classes we don't learn how to construct our own language. An average American person on the street could not tell you what a participle, gerund, or dangling modifier is, and couldn't give you an example of a adverbial clause if their life depended on it. We learn our language through listening to other people talk and reading what other people have written and not why it's correct or what these things are called, and this is how all of the 'wrong grammar' stuff eventually becomes 'right', because we learn it from other people misusing it. Frankly I think people who speak English as a second language are often
( ... )
omg goaaats.....
Reply
ETA: The goats were pretty epic. XD It's nice taking them out to the public from time to time.
|Meduza|
Reply
I'm totally not saying that it's wrong to use the 'me' construction, because it's so common that it might as well be the accepted one, but "it is I" isn't grammatically incorrect. :)
Reply
idk. My linguistics-tuned brain insists that people know their mother tongue perfectly, and that it's always just the grammarians who fall behind the times. XD
|Meduza|
Reply
Oh my gosh, no, nobody knows proper English grammar in America. When I run across people who actually know grammar rules and don't just go by 'well, saying it this way sounds wrong' I practically faint. I have to try and stop myself from correcting my friends' grammar all the time because I know I would come off as this really obsessive compulsive obnoxious person. :D
Reply
People know the rules of their grammar even if they don't know how to explain them. That's their native language, ffs! XD
{in other words: I'm a descriptivist, you're a prescriptivist.}
|Meduza|
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment