If you think you’re already adept at using the subject-verb agreement rule yet still get into trouble using the personal pronouns, don’t feel so bad about it. You’re not alone in that predicament. It’s just that some constructions involving personal pronouns have remained debatable or problematic despite the existing grammar rules for them.
The
American Heritage Book of English Usage has taken special note of those usage problems, and I will now be sharing with you that authoritative guide’s prescriptions on some of the thornier aspects.
Using personal pronouns after forms of the verb “be.” In grammar class, you probably were taught to use the nominative form of the personal pronoun (“I,” “they”) when it follows the verb “be,” as in these two constructions: “It is
I.” “That must be
they.” To most people, however, using the personal pronoun’s objective form (“me,” “them”) comes much more naturally: “It is
me.” “That must be
them.” What’s more, using the objective form becomes even more attractive when the verb is contracted. It does seem easier on the tongue to say “It’s
us” than “It’s
we,” doesn’t it?
So how do you handle this state of affairs?
In informal contexts, it will be perfectly all right to say “It is
me” and “That must be
them.” In formal writing, however, you could protect your grammar flanks if you consistently use the personal pronoun’s nominative form and say “It is
I” and “That must be
they”—even if you feel uncomfortably pedantic and somehow ridiculous doing so.
The situation becomes even stickier in sentence constructions involving a relative clause where the personal pronoun also functions as the object of the verb or of a preposition. In particular, should you use the pronoun’s nominative form (“they”) or objective form (“them”) in this sentence: “It is not
[they/them] that we need for the seminar-workshop”?
Language experts are unevenly divided on this matter, so to be on the safe side, it’s advisable to rewrite the sentence so you can do away with the expletive “it,” as follows: “
They are the ones we need for the seminar-workshop.”
Using personal pronouns after “as…as.” The traditional rule for a personal pronoun that follows an “as…as” construction is that it should be in the nominative case (“I”), as in “Your sister is
as studious as I.” The presumption here is, of course, that the sentence is simply the truncated version of “Your sister is as studious as I am.”
But as you likely already know, the “as me” or objective case construction is more commonly used in spoken English: “Your sister is
as studious as me.” A good number of respected writers use this construction and you yourself probably feel that the nominative construction “as I” is much too formal and perhaps even pretentious-sounding. Still, in formal writing, you can head off unwanted criticism by taking the middle ground—using the “as I” construction but adding the verb (“am”) to make it a clause: “Your sister is
as studious as I am.”
The use of “between you and I.” The traditional rule is to use the objective form when a personal pronoun joined by a conjunction occurs as the object of a preposition such as “between,” “according to,” or “like,” as in this sentence: “All things are now settled
between you and me.” In practice, however, many people feel more comfortable using the nominative form (“I”) in such situations: “All things are now settled
between you and I.” But are they grammatically correct in doing so?
Well, using “between you and I” may come much more naturally to you. Unfortunately, using it could mark you as not entirely knowledgeable about proper English. So, in formal speech and writing, you will be better off consistently using “between you and me.”
Next week, this column will take up just a few more troublesome aspects of personal pronoun usage before we wind up with the subject.
Read this column and listen to its voice recording in
The Manila Times:
Dealing with problematic pronoun usage- 1(Next:
Dealing with problematic personal pronoun usage- 2) May 25, 2023
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
