Question by Forum member Coolpipes in my Personal Messages box (April 26, 2018):Dear Sir Carillo,
Greetings! I am here again to ask for your enlightenment. Which of the two sentence constructions is right: “My brother and I ...” vs. I and my brother...” I remember my teacher telling us back in college that the second person or subject is more important than the speaker. Also, the speaker should be close to the verb. Secondly, I was corrected by a colleague when I said “My brother and I love collecting stamps.” He proposed the use of an infinitive instead. Am I right to say that we used the gerund form there as signaled by the verb “love”? And since I want to convey the idea that I love the whole idea of collecting stamps, the use of the gerund collecting is just right. Please enlighten me on this one.
PS. I have read your discussion on gerund vs. infinitive in your book
Give Your English the Winning Edge. However, I lost the book. Can’t find it at home.
Thank you, Sir Joe.
My reply to Coolpipes:OR SHOULD IT BE "I AND MY BROTHER..." INSTEAD?
Both “My brother and I…” and “I and my brother…” are grammatically correct. In polite society, however, it is considered good form or good etiquette for such first-person declarative sentences to mention the identity of the other subject first ahead of that of the first-person speaker. So the preferred polite construction is “
My brother and I went to see a movie last night” rather than “
I and my brother went to see a movie last night.” Your recollection that your college teacher prescribed this because “the second person or subject is more important than the speaker” isn’t exactly right. The comparative importance or social station of the entities has got nothing to do with the preferential usage; it’s simply a socio-cultural norm in English-speaking societies that may not necessarily apply in non-English-speaking societies.
On the matter of whether to use a gerund or infinitive in this sentence, “My brother and I
love (collecting, to collect) stamps,” I think “love” is one of those verbs that allow both the gerund form and the infinitive form to be the object verbal in such constructions; hence, you are right to choose the construction “My brother and I love
collecting stamps” (gerund phrase as direct object of the verb “love”) but your colleague was right as well in choosing “My brother and I love
to collect stamps” (infinitive phrase as direct object of the verb “love”). It’s really a toss-up between the two.
Be forewarned though that this interchangeability between gerunds and infinitives as direct objects doesn’t apply to all verbs in general. The choice between a gerund and an infinitive depends on the desired shade of meaning, and I must say that this choice is a rather complicated thing. To get a good handle and appreciation of the bases for this choice, check out my essay in the Forum on the subject,
“The choice between gerunds and infinitives.” I have put together the four ground rules in English grammar for intelligently making that choice.
Good luck!
IMPORTANT READING:“The choice between gerunds and infinitives”
