LPP 2

I/Me, He/Him, They/Them, Who/Whom, etc.

Fine, so that's several different words, whatever, they all do the same thing, and so few people know when to use which half of each set. And it's not even that hard, really.

The problem is that English is an incredibly easy language. In German, for example, each noun has four different forms (cases), and you use one or the other depending on what the noun is doing or having done to it. In Latin there are five cases. Very exciting. In English, however, we only have two--and because two isn't so awfully difficult, we don't try at all! So... not good. Today's grammar lesson, then.

Latin has the nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, and ablative cases. In English we have the nominative and the everything-else cases. When your noun--let's say, your shoe--is the subject of a sentence, you use the nominative. My shoe kicks your ass. If your shoe is not the subject, you use the everything-else. Your ass got so kicked by my shoe. Give me back my shoe. Gotta give it up to my shoe. Et cetera. Now, shoe does not, in fact, decline (change case/form) depending on its function in a sentence, but all our lovely pronouns do. I kicked your ass. Your ass was kicked by me. I made you give the shoe back to me. The shoe and I are awesome.

The easiest thing to do is ask yourself whether the shoe, or I, or he or she or who is the subject. To whom does the verb apply. Hint: if the noun/pronoun comes after a preposition, never ever ever use the nominative. You'll sound like a moron. He talked to I? I don't think so. My boyfriend and I may drink, but no one ever gives drinks to he and I. There are pictures of him and me, but none of he and I.

Who and whom can be a wee bit trickier, in that it's often harder to decide whether it is the subject or something else. Whom shall we invite to the party? Who will come? See the difference? In the first case, we are doing the inviting. In the second place, who is doing the coming. Whom shall I give it to? See, whom goes with to, and the rule about prepositions holds. Something that may be helpful is to rephrase the sentence, either answering a question or substituting in he or him, and seeing what sounds retarded and what doesn't. Whom shall we invite? We shall invite him. Who will come? He will come. Easy. You would (ideally) never say I invited he to my party, and him will surely come.

The who/whom thing isn't actually so important in casual speech, but if you write it the wrong way you look like a tard--really, if you're uncertain of which to use when you're just talking, always go with who, and you'll still sound ok; use whom wrong in speech and you sound like a pompous tard. If you're writing something, however, you have time to think about which form you really want to use, and please, do so.

One final note. Whom, my friends, is not the fancy-pants version of who, which you use when you wish to impress. You have to use it correctly, and even then no one is likely to be very impressed. I should know. What reward have I ever reaped for my impeccable grammar? None!

I doubt I've actually helped anyone with all this bitching, since no one reads this besides Reuben (who already knows all this) anyway, but that's ok. I don't necessarily want everyone to be correct, because then who would I make fun of?

Update: When you say "between you and I" or "between he and I" you sound like a tard. Between is a preposition.

Also, avoid the dreaded I's construction (you know, where someone talks himself into a corner and says "It was your mother's and I's decision" or something like that). MY, people, never I's.