I wanted to shake up my life and go sailing (or learn on the job, so-to-speak) so headed to Florida to crew on a catamaran. This is about how it went or, rather, didn't - and my life since. Hopefully it will lead to a catamaran on the clear aqua blue waters of the Caribbean Sea, watching the sunset, a coconut rum and coke in hand. You must START AT THE BEGINNING of the blog, April 2009, to get the whole story...

Sunday, October 30, 2011

MIND YOUR GRAMMAR

There is a common grammatical error used almost constantly these days that really bothers me. It is particularly bad on reality TV shows when the contestants sit down for an interview. It bothers me so much that I have decided to write about it here today in hopes of educating a wider audience on the correct use of two small words; me and I.

Yes, it's all about the use of "I" when one should use "me" in conjunction with someone else in the sentence.

Rather than go into a long and confusing dissertation about subjective and objective pronouns let me make it super easy.

It is a very simple rule to figure out because there's a nifty way of double checking to make sure you are using the correct word:

"It took George and I just under an hour to finish." is wrong because you wouldn't say:
"It took I just under an hour to finish." you would say:
"It took me just under an hour to finish." therefore:
"It took George and me just under an hour to finish." is right.

"George and I finished the task." is right because you would say:
"I finished the task."

So, to sum up - you take away the other person with you and whichever word you would use without them, you use with them.

See how easy that was?

One use of "I" that really drives me crazy is, "George and Ises relationship is so strong right now." Really? Ises, or Is's, or Is' - there's no way to spell it because it's not a word! It makes my ears bleed every time I hear it.

And while I am on the topic:

Imply and infer are not interchangeable. Imply is what the speaker does; infer is what the listener does.

Wrong: Are you inferring that I am a fool?
Right: Are you implying that I am a fool?

Right: From what you are saying, I infer you think I am a fool.

IMPLICATION: what the speaker has implied
INFERENCE: what the listener has inferred

Now if there was just some way to get this to all of those reality 'stars'. But my guess is that most of them don't read.
All photographs are mine and not to be copied without express permission from me (click on them to see the large version).
Some names have been changed to protect my butt.



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