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Many of us consider the phrase "Can I help who's next?" to be peculiar, intriguing, or just plain odd. It caused me to wonder, is it really a utah-ism?
"Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum, ... a linguist specialising in the study of English, " (wikipedia.org) posted this analysis of the phrase. Hmm... those coffee shop employees are speaking a bit of Shakespearian English and probably didn't even know it! [Emoticon not found] Definitely not the only explanation out there, but interesting at least, imo.
What other phrases cause a jolt to your lexicon as they enter your ears?
I was actually talking to someone just the other day about that very phrase...like, to my sister, or something. I posited the theory that it was one of these fused relative thingummies, but who I was talking to (my sister, perhaps?) suspected it was a something else.
Thanks for posting this!
Another that I consider odd is the confusion between the use of "I" and "me" as a object.
For example...
"I like this photo of my goldfish and I."
[Emoticon not found] Thoughts?
Yeah, I don't really know what to do about that one. Russian's got a neat system where they'd say something more like "I like this photo of us with my goldfish." or conversely "We with my goldfish look good in this photo."
Instead of joining two singular pronouns with a conjunction, they introduce a plural pronoun, and bind it to the other object with a preposition. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.
I'm definitely not a linguist... I'm an engineer. However, when in doubt, this is the method I use to correct my phraseology:
"I like this photo of my goldfish and I." //Now that sounds weird. Let's remove the goldfish.
"I like this photo of I." //I KNOW that's not correct.
"I like this photo of me." [or myself] //There we go. Now let's add the goldfish.
"I like this photo of my goldfish and me [or myself]." //Ta-DAH! It works. Whether it's correct, I don't know... but I have a logical method for correcting my grammar. I'm guessing it's more correct to use "myself" than "me" in this instance.
In this situation, myself is a good one. You'll get people who try to cheat, though, and use it when they weren't the subject.
Spanish has the wonder that is reflexive. I don't even know how to explain it, but I would say it alike so:
"Nos vemos bien en esa foto, my pez y yo"
And I think "myself" is the correct English word for that situation.
Finally, never forget that Jesus murio por nuestros pescados.
Actually, 'myself' is perfectly valid due to it having a c-commanding antecedent with no other personal noun to add ambiguity. 'Me' is also acceptable as it is the object of a prepositional phrase. The confusion between me and I in conjoined phrases is due to hypercorrection and the changing nature of the first-person default.
...yeah, you might not want to write anything that encourages me to get involved in this. Someone might get hurt.
SwingSis:Actually, 'myself' is perfectly valid due to it having a c-commanding antecedent with no other personal noun to add ambiguity. 'Me' is also acceptable as it is the object of a prepositional phrase. The confusion between me and I in conjoined phrases is due to hypercorrection and the changing nature of the first-person default.
...yeah, you might not want to write anything that encourages me to get involved in this. Someone might get hurt.
[Emoticon not found]
What's hilarious is that I understood almost everything that you said. Wow, I'm a huge nerd. hehe
I'll buy that. But "myself" as part of the subject is still no good, right? 'Cause you'll get that too, now and then.
SwingSis:Actually, 'myself' is perfectly valid due to it having a c-commanding antecedent with no other personal noun to add ambiguity. 'Me' is also acceptable as it is the object of a prepositional phrase. The confusion between me and I in conjoined phrases is due to hypercorrection and the changing nature of the first-person default.
...yeah, you might not want to write anything that encourages me to get involved in this. Someone might get hurt.
For a minute I thought you were going to start typing in IPA [Emoticon not found]
What did you think of the aforementioned explanation of "Can I help who's next?"
One, I assume you're referring to phrases like "I myself read the book", right, Ransom? In that case, the reflexive is being used as an emphatic, also perfectly legal, if different.
Two, I never considered the question "Can I help who's next?" to be odd or Utah-ish at all, so I may be missing part of the point (or I may have corrupted my own ear by hanging around Spanish too much, which uses the impersonal who all the time). I considered it a variant of "Can I help whoever's next?" with 'who' being a truncated, slightly more informal, version. I have no idea why the author of that article disagrees and seems to believe that 'who' and 'whoever' have to have significantly different meanings. I don't see the difference between 'who' and 'whoever', and 'I' and 'me' -- the distribution is changing for each of them, no need to freak out about it.
SwingSis:One, I assume you're referring to phrases like "I myself read the book", right, Ransom? In that case, the reflexive is being used as an emphatic, also perfectly legal, if different.
No, no. I'm down with those. Just sometimes you'll hear somebody say something like "SwingSis and myself were discussing grammar on the forum". Eesh.
Yeah, that's no good. However, with conjoined phrases like that, a lot of people get confused -- like, it's supposed to be "between you and me", but people overcorrect and get "between you and I".
I'm a nerd, but I don't worry about mechanics like this. Nope, I'll just go play with my lasers.
SpecialK:I'm a nerd, but I don't worry about mechanics like this. Nope, I'll just go play with my lasers.
Just be careful around the sharks.
SwingSis:no need to freak out about it.
You wanna see freaking out? It was funny, for me, to do a little google search on the phrase and find all the 'grammarians' disdain for it.
How about this fun phrase?
What do you expect someone to say when asking if you want to take your food out of the restaurant or eat it in the establishment?
I've heard someone from [state omitted for political correctness] say "Eedih heeah teeih wheeah?" It took a couple of tries, but I think it meant "Eat it here, or take it with you?" But I don't think that's what you were asking.
ahem... what was the question?
t_roach:SwingSis:What do you expect someone to say when asking if you want to take your food out of the restaurant or eat it in the establishment?
"is this for here or to go?"
i've also heard a lot of "can i get a 'to-go' bag," which i find mildly amusing. but it's probably been used enough to become part of the dictionary by now.
Is it really okay to say "I like this photo of my goldfish and myself"? That sounds funny to me.
Grant: Probably "For here, or to go?" which doesn't bother me at all, since they're both prepositional phrases easily lopped off the end of "Is this--"
Pop: Either are acceptable, but times are a'changin', and I think I'm definitely more likely to say "of my goldfish and me", or even "of me", even though "this picture of myself" wouldn't rub me the wrong way or anything.
EDIT: No, wait. Sorry, having a brain fart. In the sentence "I took of a picture of my goldfish and myself", either is good. In this case, just as a normal noun, it's wrong, since it's non-reflexive and has no c-commanding coreferent antecedent.
EDITEDIT: So yeah, Pop, you're right. It's wrong.
EDITEDITEDIT: Although it may yet become 'right' to speakers in the future! I'm all about the non-prescriptivism.
popthestack:Is it really okay to say "I like this photo of my goldfish and myself"? That sounds funny to me.
I read that as "I like this photo of my goldself and myfish."
SwingSis:Grant: Probably "For here, or to go?" which doesn't bother me at all, since they're both prepositional phrases easily lopped off the end of "Is this--"
I've joked about this so much with people that I have no idea what I'd say naturally cuz every time I would try to say it, I'd laugh. Those that caused this to be a funny phrase for me didn't like to hear people say "Is that to stay or to go?"
swingsis:I'm all about the non-prescriptivism.
I think descriptivism is far more fascinating due to the psycho- and socio-linguistic analyses that are involved.
I never realized that people thought about this stuff so much. I appreciate it, I really do, but I think my brain would explode. I go with what sounds right.
What sounds right to you today, pop?
I think a nice bowl of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana would hit the spot today.... but that's me.
t_roach:What sounds right to you today, pop?
Same thing that sounds right every other day...
Try to take over the worl.... oh wait, that's not right.
popthestack:t_roach:What sounds right to you today, pop?
Same thing that sounds right every other day...
Try to take over the worl.... oh wait, that's not right.
That's so right, it's wrong.
Buzz:popthestack:t_roach:What sounds right to you today, pop?
Same thing that sounds right every other day...
Try to take over the worl.... oh wait, that's not right.
That's so right, it's wrong.
That's so... wait.... I'm confused I think. Do you smell food? I smell food. Or maybe I'd just like to be smelling food. I'm hungry!
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