Pet peeves. I got plenty. Too many, but that's another matter.
One biggee is starting a sentence with the word "me."
I have two primary school children, so I hear my share of "me and mom," "me and my brother," and the like.
Lest you misunderstand, I'm no grammarian. And I certainly don't possess consummate skill and facility with the spoken or written language. Those of you who've read my columns already know this.
It's just something. Sure, part of it is grammar. OK, maybe a big part of it is grammar.
Perhaps I'm hung up on this because I only possess reasonable fluency in English and no other languages, unless golf counts as a second language. If I spoke or understood Russian or Portuguese or German, I might feel differently. Hey, I don't even fully understand "British" -- the Queen's English.
I'm writing this because my nine-year old son is driving me crazy. My 10-year daughter is fine. She usually says "she and I" or "mom and I," etc. It's largely learned behavior for her, so it's no big deal. It's second nature.
But my son. Ah, my son.
How was I going to address this challenge? I didn't want to repeatedly correct him so that I would petrify him and cause a stutter. That happened to my dad when, growing up in the 1930's, his teachers decided that only right-handed writers were permitted and he was left-handed. He had his stutter until he died.
I recalled something I read. If you do something 39 times, it becomes habit. Who measured and concluded that and whether it was correct, I don't know. But it sounded reasonable.
So, I explained to my son that I would "gently and lovingly" remind him when he was using me incorrectly and that I wouldn't have to remind him more than 39 times before it worked. It would be a game. It would be fun. I embarked on my project.
It was fun. It was a game. It didn't work.
After 39 times, I stopped. My son still says "me and my sister."
There must be something else at work. My son must be intelligent, motivated, willing to please his parents, and all those wonderful attributes. After all, he is my son. What? Do you expect me to call him a dolt?
It struck me that folks on TV talk this way, his schoolmates talk this way, and society seems unfazed. Everywhere he -- and others -- turn, it's "me" this and "me" that. Me me me.
I realized that my concern was not solely grammatical. I knew now that the other huge irritant was the implicit "me-ism" that is self-contained in such speech. It indirectly reinforces the belief that the world revolves around me and everyone else is secondary.
I'm not saying folks who talk this way are bad or necessarily selfish, at least no more selfish than humans are intrinsically. I'm saying that there's a subconscious, underlying philosophy that potentially could be invidious, unless checked. Checked either by the speaker or a meddlesome parent. That would be I. Of course, "that would be me" sounds better because we hear it all the time. But it's wrong. I think I heard in high school that it had to do with the predicate nominative, whatever that is.
No harm, no foul. After all, whether you say me or I, one knows what you're talking about and that's all that matters. Right?
Yes, but....
If you always put yourself first, even if only in speech, where does that leave everyone else? It leaves them in your dust. I'm overdrawing the case a bit, to be sure, but to make a point. If I'm always the first, the center of the universe, it must color how I see myself and others. And that can't really be good, can it?
But who really cares?
Just me and you. Oops!
++++
Fred W. Apelquist, III, M. Ed.
Approximately 650 words.
(C) 2001