The poor, battered objective case. When will its sufferings end?
Even those of us who went to somewhat decent schools still missed out on a real explanation of how we’re supposed to handle pronouns in various functions within a sentence. I personally remember one lesson in eighth grade that stuck in my head, but I also followed that up with four years of Latin, which has a way of making you zero in on word function like perhaps no other language. I wasn’t a geek or anything.
Most of us probably just got a slap on the wrist when we got it wrong—no actual explanation of why. That’s probably why the objective case is one of the most abused aspects of the English language, on par only with things like “their, there, they’re” mistakes in frequency. I’ve even run across, believe it or not, some fellow editors who still manage to be confused about the subject.
Lookit. The objective case handles, wait for it, objects. That means objects of verbs AND prepositions. So anytime a pronoun is the object of a verb or preposition, it has to fall into the objective case. Makes sense, don’t it?
So, for example:
“Between you and (first person singular pronoun), this isn’t a hard concept to grasp.”
Let’s figure this out logically. What part of speech is between? Preposition! So what does that make you and (first person singular pronoun)? The object—even though it’s plural. So what case should the word in the blank fall into? Objective! See, I didn’t even have to say it.
Now we consult our handydandy chart. We’re looking for a first person singular pronoun in the objective case.
Whoa, look-a there. So now the sentence should correctly read:
“Between you and me, this isn’t a hard concept to grasp.”
Why not "I"? Because "I" is the subjective form of the pronoun, to be used with, wait for it, subjects.
Any questions? Good. Now stop leaving me voicemails saying, "Give Suzie or I a call if you want to go to roller derby."
