Is it (or was it until recently) customary for many teachers in the American school-system to make a big "thing" about saying and writing "It's I" instead of "It's me"?

LeakyPickle

I be thinkin' this is a local issue... May 02 05, 11:27 AM

lanfranco

It was customary when I was in school, in the 60's and 70's (that dates me), and it helped that many of us studied Latin, so we got the point. However, things must have changed, because the students I've had tend to prefer "It's me" in both formal and informal speech. A larger problem is the distinction between "its" and "it's," one that frequently shows up essays. And then there is "its'," which one student breezily informed me was the "possessive plural of 'it'." May 02 05, 11:31 AM

bloomsby

In my own schooldays (1950s and early 1960s, in England) it was a complete non-issue. Both were accepted without further ado and if anything "It's me" was preferred as more natural and on the grounds that it was less likely to lead to things like "between you and I" or things like "Who's supposed to have said that? Surely, not 'moi', by any chance?" Clearly, it's not a matter of British English versus American English, but my main reason for asking was that I have gained the impression over the years that it's something of preoccupation in America, but hardly any more in Britain: using "It's I" has a significance in America that it doesn't have in England - or at least such is my impression ... I'd be interested to hear from more people. :) In Britain we seem to have been lucky in that Fowler refused to condemn "It's me" in his "Modern English Usage" (1926). It's a great pity that early codifiers of English grammar were so preoccupied with Latin grammar that it didn't occur to them to allow for two forms of the emphatic pronoun, as in French. May 02 05, 1:13 PM

Arpeggionist

Ah, to speak a language in which there is no discrimination between forms of emphatic pronouns... Non-Semitic-language speakers have no idea what they're missing... May 02 05, 2:42 PM

kaylofgorons

I think it should be labeled an exception to the rule. I had many, many grammar lessons in school, and I've never had a teacher really stress "It's I." They mentioned that it's correct, but never bothered to enforce it. It isn't often in formal writing that you'll be saying "It's I" anyway. (Checking to make sure no its climbed in there...) May 02 05, 5:02 PM

gmackematix

"'Tis I" sounds grammatically correct but a little outdated. "It's I" just sounds plain awful. Strange 'tisn't it? May 02 05, 5:30 PM

potterguy

Well, I'm sure it was no bigger issue than others that the nuns stressed, but in the 50s and 60s (my era), what with diagramming sentences, the use of I instead of me was strongly encouraged (whack! whack!). May 02 05, 8:53 PM

kaylofgorons

"Me" is a perfectly good word, and I'm still trying to explain to my father that "They are coming to see Joe and me" is okay and better than "They are coming to see Joe and I." :P Then you have some of the older folks who will use "myself" instead of either of them. May 02 05, 9:29 PM

lanfranco

My grade-school teachers weren't nuns, but they were all older women who had been required to study Latin and had been brought up on diagramming, as some of them loved to inform us --largely as a way of letting us know how easy we had it. We were not taught diagramming, but I hear there's a movement to bring it back. May 02 05, 9:33 PM

lanfranco

Um, kayl, "They are coming to see Joe and me" is grammatically correct. "Joe and I" is not. "Me" is an object pronoun, whereas "I," "They," "He/she," can be used only as subjects. You don't have to convince your father that you're right; you are. May 02 05, 9:41 PM

bloomsby

Kayl. In linguistics there's a useful word for what your father seems to be doing. It's called 'hypercorrection', that is being so terribly afraid of making mistakes that the speaker (or writer) inadvertently creates new ones - as a result of linguistic insecurity. (In the case of someone speaking a foreign language the reason may be somewhat different). Here's a link that you may find useful: http://pages.prodigy.net/sol.magazine/glossary.htm#hyperc Some foreigners, whose native language doesn't have the English /w/ and at first use /v/ instead when speaking English, may end up using /w/ for both /v/ and /w/ - for example: 'They used their adwantage wery well'. :) Edited to add another link, which may be less useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection Hypercorrection can be used mockingly, as for example, in 'heducation'. May 03 05, 12:07 AM

kaylofgorons

:) I know it's correct. But my father was taught in such a way that he thinks "me" is always an incorrect word. Do you know how hard it is to show a forty something father how to break a sentence down to decide if a pronoun is in objective case or not? It's really hard to explain to someone who only learned their parts of speech from SchoolHouse Rock. May 03 05, 8:59 AM

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