• Mood: peaceful

grammar pants are nothing at all like Joey Pants, even if Joey Pants wants you to think so.

You know what would be awesome? A (live) dramatic reading of The Matrix transcript where each reader is limited to 140 (digital) characters (or fewer) at a time, speaking in full sentences as much as possible. Even if it means that more than one person speaks for the same character. Lils and I have been trying this on Twitter and it IS AWESOME LIKE THIS CAT. You're welcome.

You know what's not so awesome? Not knowing when it's appropriate to say "X and I" vs "X and me". No, the rule is not "cultured people say 'X and I', they never say 'X and me'." That's just something clueless people say because they don't know from noun cases.


"Draco and I are going shopping for dildos," said Harry. CORRECT! Have a cookie some blinky text!

"Hermione bought some dildos for Draco and I," said Harry. INCORRECT! Congratulations on making Harry sound like a moron!

Noun cases, flist. Well, in English, more appropriate would be "pronoun cases" since nouns don't change except to indicate plural or possessive (I don't think there are mainstream-use exceptions, but I could be wrong). DON'T WORRY. I WILL BREAK IT DOWN FOR YOU REAL SIMPLE-LIKE. USING DRACO. AND HARRY. AND SOME PRONOUNS.

subjective: [the noun or pronoun is performing the action]
(Draco) went to buy a dildo.
(He) went to buy a dildo.
(I) went to buy a dildo.
(Draco and I) went to buy a dildo.

objective [the noun or pronoun is the thing on which an action is being performed]
Harry doesn't like (Draco).
Harry doesn't like (him).
Harry doesn't like (me).
Harry doesn't like (him and me).

SEE WHAT I DID THAR? WOULD YOU EVER SAY "HARRY DOESN'T LIKE I"? UNLESS YOU ARE A LOLCAT^*, NO, NO YOU WOULD NOT. SAYING "HARRY DOESN'T LIKE HIM AND I" IS THE SAME AS SAYING "HARRY DOESN'T LIKE HIM AND HE ALSO DOESN'T LIKE I". SO STOP DOING IT.
^*I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOU'RE A LOLCAT: THERE ARE DRUGS FOR THAT.

There are other cases, but before using "...and I" in a sentence, ask yourself if you would use "I" if there were no "and". When you are using a first-person pronoun in the objective case (i.e. something is being done to the pronoun "I"), the pronoun always changes to me:

I (not me) hate you. You hate ME (not I). Give me MY pills back: they're MINE.

Let's not discuss the "it's me/him/her/us/them" vs "it is I/she/he/we/they" clusterfuck, because while it may SEEM like the same shit on the surface, it is not: there have been many instances of both uses for centuries and there are compelling grammatical arguments for both, which is just not the case "and me" vs "and I" in the objective.

You can be a tricky bastard and always use reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, himself) to avoid mucking around with cases but in most cases that'll just make normal people wonder what Draco's famous dildo is doing up your arse.

YOU'RE WELCOME.



PLEASE DISSUADE ME FROM ATTEMPTING CRACKFIC IN WHICH HARRY CHEATS ON DRACO WITH A PRONOUN.