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Blogs by Rolf Richardson
Me and John 10/21/2019 1:11:55 AM
A writer's currency is words, which we have to put in a certain order to be understood; and craft carefully if our aim is to achieve a readership. We will be riding this grammar horse for much of the time in any work of fiction.
However, in real life people don't speak proper, so every few lines we will have to change steeds and mount the dialogue horse, a frisky beast who is forever bolting, as words are lost, new ones invented and meanings changed. 'Gay' and 'cool' no longer mean what they used to.
Those of us of a certain age often bridle at this flood of neologisms. For example, I would say 'John and I went home', whereas the modern version would be 'Me and John went home'. I find this horrible on two counts: first, 'John' and 'I' are in the nominative case, 'me' is an accusative case word and should never be used when 'I' is correct. Secondly, the order is transposed, 'me' now coming before 'John'. Does this say something about today's ethos, where 'me' seems to be the centre of the universe? I grew up in an outward looking era, where as a matter of simple politeness one said 'after you, sir (or madame)'. Now, it seems. the focus is more inward looking. No longer 'John and I', but 'ME and John...'
