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
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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.
Poetry from Restoration, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century. Comparative literature; International; philosophy