Travaglini the Eloquent
Christ, where the hell did Massachusetts Senate President Robert Travaglini (shown left) learn English? Watching The Sopranos? I don’t mean to nit pick, but reading the text of his remarks at last Friday’s press conference with governor elect Deval Patrick made me cringe. After issuing a stern warning to Patrick last week, he threatened to withdraw the legislature’s support of Patrick’s agenda, Travaglini backed down, explaining:“The relationship between Deval and I is important not only to he and I but to everyone who resides in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts…”
The relationship between Deval and me. You don’t use the nominative case after a preposition. And to whom is it important? Certainly not to he and I, but rather to him and me.
I’ve noticed something of a trend in the erroneous use of the nominative case in instances where the accusative case is required. Ironically, I get the feeling that those who are guilty of butchering the English language in this fashion do so because they feel it makes them sound more intelligent.
Labels: Deval Patrick, English, Robert Travaglini
posted by Sandouri Dean Bey at 12:30 PM
3 Comments:
you and me's got some talking about this over to do when we gets home this evening. this grammar things is only important not to he and you, but I to. sopranos, huh??!! try the godfather! or howabout goodfellers! thats what you get for being so pendantic.
It's everywhere these days. A reporter doing live coverage of a breaking story for a Boston TV station informed the anchor that she and another reporter would be doing round the clock coverage -- or, as it actually emerged, "Me and Mary Ann will be covering every minute of this." In case we hadn't heard it the first time, she repeated "Me and Mary Ann will . . ." at the end of her report.
Hoever, I can't tell you how many times I've heard otherwise well educated and literate English men and women say some version of "this is a very important event for my family and I. Apparently that structure has some sort of validation over there.
I think we need a national brush-up on case. We've forgotten the difference between a subject and an object. People saying "Today is very important to she and I" is just surreal. But apparently it sounds right to some people. Drives me insane. If you're going to speak a language, speak the language! (In other words, I agree with your blog post.)
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