Tempest in the English grammar teacup: “Her” or “she”?

[Gerry T. Galacio]

I'm a member of the "Grammar Geeks" LinkedIn group, and I posted a discussion at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/activity:6462107162016616448/ about a Meghan Markle and Prince Harry article from Cosmopolitan.

The discussion focuses on the following sentence from the Cosmopolitan article:

"She has yet to be photographed taking her own pictures, but this image suggests that her and Harry have been capturing private moments of the tour for themselves, like the crazy in love newlyweds that they are."

I asked the group if "her" in the phrase "her and Harry" was a typo because, as an English grammar teacher from 1981 up to 2010, I would use "she" (subjective case) instead of "her" (objective case).

So far, out of the four people who have commented, the score goes like this:

One person (a journalist) said that it's absolutely wrong to use "her."

One person (a group admin) said that "she" should have been used, but it would be correct if "her" was part of the writer's speech patterns.

Two persons (a group admin and a computer scientist) said that there's nothing wrong with "her" (citing references from OED) and that insisting on using "she" is "prescriptive silliness" (my paraphrase). They also said that there's nothing wrong with "her and Harry" as a subjective noun phrase.

What do you think?

[Joe Carillo]

I think it’s absurd and bordering on basic grammar ignorance to defend as correct—or even as just permissible if debatable—the Cosmopolitan’s use of the objective “her” in this sentence: "She has yet to be photographed taking her own pictures, but this image suggests that her and Harry have been capturing private moments of the tour for themselves, like the crazy in love newlyweds that they are.” The correct usage is clearly and indisputably the subjective “she,” so that sentence should be corrected as follows: "She has yet to be photographed taking her own pictures, but this image suggests that she and Harry have been capturing private moments of the tour for themselves, like the crazy in love newlyweds that they are.”

Meghan Markle, on royal tour of Australia, Fiji, and Tonga with Prince
Harry, is cuddled by a five-year-old in Australia.

I get the feeling that if the matter is brought to the attention of Cosmopolitan’s writer and editors themselves, they would readily admit that the use of “her” in that flawed sentence is hands down inadvertently wrong and is a most unfortunate proofreading error. To defend “her” as correct or even just permissible usage is not at all possible, for we are dealing here with a compound subject that must not only be both in the subjective form but also set in parallel. This means that the component pronoun and noun of that compound subject can only be “she and Harry,” and never “her and Harry.” How grammatically absurd it would be if we put that compound subject in the objective form “her and him” or the possessive form “hers and Harry’s” if only to make both scrupulously parallel.

It likewise shouldn’t be overlooked that the construction “this image suggests that her and Harry have been capturing private moments of the tour for themselves” is actually a complex sentence where the subordinate clause “that her and Harry have been capturing private moments of the tour for themselves” is one where the compound form “her and Harry” performs a dual function, namely (a) as the subjects introduced by the function word “that,” and (2) as the subjects as well of the subordinate clause “her and Harry have been capturing private moments of the tour for themselves” itself. Clearly, the use of the objective “her” instead of the subjective “she” would make the whole complex construction dysfunctional or plainly wrong, as what happened in this case.

READ THE FULL COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE STORY:
“Meghan Markle Adorably Fangirls Prince Harry...”