{"id":1098,"date":"2020-10-20T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1098"},"modified":"2021-02-18T11:07:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T17:07:38","slug":"we-the-people-or","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/pronouns\/we-the-people-or\/","title":{"rendered":"We the People, or&#8230;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For much of the last two months, we have been analyzing why the subject pronouns <em>I<\/em>,<em> he<\/em>, <em>she<\/em>, <em>we<\/em>, <em>they <\/em>and the object pronouns <em>me<\/em>,<em> him<\/em>, <em>her<\/em>, <em>us<\/em>, <em>them<\/em> are chronically misused and confused.<\/p>\n<p>In this final installment, we&#8217;ll deal with flawed sentences like <em>Politicians should respect we the people <\/em>and<em> It&#8217;s a happy outcome for he who laughs last.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Formal writing requires \u201c<em>us <\/em>the people\u201d (object of <em>respect<\/em>) and \u201c<em>him <\/em>who laughs last\u201d (object of <em>for<\/em>), even though we instinctively resist tampering with venerable expressions like <em>we the people <\/em>and<em> he who laughs last<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>If being correct would ruin the mood, there may be creative ways around the grammatical buzzkill. In the first case, we could probably avoid censure by using capitals: <em>Politicians should respect We the People<\/em>. This signals the reader that the well-known phrase is sacrosanct and must not be altered.<\/p>\n<p>In the second example, we could write: <em>a happy outcome for \u201che who laughs last.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 The quotation marks grant the words special dispensation, like the title of a book or movie.<\/p>\n<p>So now, here is a summary of the chief causes of pronoun confusion.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All forms of the verb <em>to be<\/em>. Informal sentences (<em>It was <strong>me<\/strong><\/em>, <em>It must have been <strong>them<\/strong><\/em>, <em>It seems to be <strong>her<\/strong><\/em><strong>)<\/strong> wrongly use object pronouns instead of what are called <strong>subject complements<\/strong>. (The correct pronouns respectively would be <em>I<\/em>, <em>they<\/em>, and <em>she<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<li>Compound subjects and compound objects. In everyday speech, when <em>and<\/em> or <em>or<\/em> links a pronoun with other nouns or pronouns, the results are often ungrammatical: <em>Joe and him went fishing<\/em>, <em>Sue invited my friend and I for dinner<\/em>, <em>Her or I will meet you there<\/em>. (The correct pronouns respectively would be <em>he<\/em>, <em>me<\/em>, and <em>she<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<li>Comparative sentences using <em>as<\/em> or <em>than<\/em>. Sentences like <em>You&#8217;re as smart as her<\/em> and <em>Eddie ran faster than them<\/em> sound fine but are technically flawed. (The correct pronouns respectively would be <em>she <\/em>and <em>they<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<li>Infinitives and verbs ending in &#8211;<em>ing<\/em>. They change subjects to objects. An infinitive such as <em>to be<\/em> turns <em>I believe <strong>he<\/strong> is honest <\/em>into <em>I believe <strong>him<\/strong> to be honest<\/em>. A verb ending in &#8211;<em>ing<\/em>, such as <em>going<\/em>, gives us the option of saying either <em>I saw <strong>he<\/strong> was going home <\/em>or <em>I saw <strong>him<\/strong> going home<\/em>. This can be especially confusing with compound subjects and objects, or when <em>who-whom<\/em> is involved.<\/li>\n<li>Idiomatic phrases containing subject pronouns (<em>we the people<\/em>, <em>he who laughs last<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Pop Quiz<\/h2>\n<p>Correct any sentences that are formally ungrammatical.<\/p>\n<p>1. LaTroy knew it was him who everyone preferred.<\/p>\n<p>2. According to witnesses, it had to have been we.<\/p>\n<p>3. The receipts were always safe with Maria and I.<\/p>\n<p>4. May him and his friend join us for a nightcap?<\/p>\n<p>5. She&#8217;s every bit as confused as me.<\/p>\n<p>6. Your cousin&#8217;s wife looks older than he.<\/p>\n<p>7. Who do you suspect was hiding something?<\/p>\n<p>8. Who do you suspect to be hiding something?<\/p>\n<p>9. This has been a hard week for we residents of California.<\/p>\n<p>10. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Pop Quiz Answers<\/h3>\n<p>1. LaTroy knew it was <em>he<\/em> <em>whom<\/em> everyone preferred.<\/p>\n<p>2. According to witnesses, it had to have been we. <strong>CORRECT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>3. The receipts were always safe with Maria and <em>me<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>4. May <em>he<\/em> and his friend join us for a nightcap?<\/p>\n<p>5. She&#8217;s every bit as confused as <em>I<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>6. Your cousin&#8217;s wife looks older than he.<strong> CORRECT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>7. Who do you suspect was hiding something? <strong>CORRECT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>8. <em>Whom<\/em> do you suspect to be hiding something?<\/p>\n<p>9. This has been a hard week for <em>us<\/em> residents of California.<\/p>\n<p>10. Let <em>him<\/em> who is without sin cast the first stone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For much of the last two months, we have been analyzing why the subject pronouns I, he, she, we, they and the object pronouns me, him, her, us, them are chronically misused and confused. In this final installment, we&#8217;ll deal with flawed sentences like Politicians should respect we the people and It&#8217;s a happy outcome [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,12,8,22,43,23,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalization","category-effective-writing","category-pronouns","category-quotation-marks","category-subject-and-verb-agreement","category-verbs","category-whowhomwhoeverwhomever"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}