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Date: | Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:46:56 -0800 |
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The lavender of the subjunctive
Eric Griffiths on the pleasures wrought by grammar from Ben Jonson to the Pet
Shop Boys, as revealed in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by
Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K Pullum
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
by Rodney Huddleston & Geoffrey K Pullum, c.2002
1,860pp, Cambridge, £100
"So the Cambridge Grammar's editors note that sentences like 'They invited my
partner and I to lunch' are 'regularly used by a significant proportion of
speakers of Standard English ... they pass unnoticed in broadcast speech all the
time'. They explain convincingly why 'my partner and me' would be no more
grammatical."
Eric Griffiths teaches English literature at the University of Cambridge
~~~~~
Dr. Griffiths, Sir,
Would you say, "They invited my partner to lunch"? Yes.
Would you say, "They invited I to lunch"? No.
That's why "they invited my partner and me" is the more grammatical. Surely
Huddleston & Pullum are not stymied by such an obvious item of grammar, but then
they are linguists and not grammarians. The two trades are second cousins, not
twins.
I see further on in your fine article you write, "We should not expect too much
from linguists; they are witnesses not judges". Indeed. My point exactly. There
are often good reasons for "good grammar".
.brad.10dec10.
Dr Eric Griffiths, Trinity <[log in to unmask]>
Poetry from Restoration, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century.
Comparative literature; International; philosophy
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