It's only natural for a harpy of an adultrous hypocrite like Callista Gingrich to say of the Petraeus scandal, "I think it’s personally very sad for he and his family." Her artificial emotion is so natural, it bothers me not. But Callista, what's absolutely excruciating is hearing you say, "for he and his family."
What's so hard about this? Prepositional phrase, pronoun takes the accusative case. Simple. Yet just days ago I also heard a former secretary of state and Joint Chiefs chairman say that he'd be voting "for he and Joe Biden," he being Barack Obama, or rather he being the him of Barack Obama, for whom Powell would assuredly vote.
Come on, guys, this is some really simple shit. Prepositional phrase, pronoun takes the accusative case. I don't wish to seem the schoolmarm, but anything other than that is even more irksome than Dick Morris nasally hissing out an election forecast.
You can thank the legacy of all the teachers and parents who, rather than get into the weeds of explaining niceties of grammar, merely screeched "Wrong! Johnnie and I! Not Johnnie and me!" until the poor chilluns had it ineradicably embedded into their psyches that any "____ and ____" construction must never descend into the abominable error of using the accusative case.
Posted by: Janicket | November 12, 2012 at 02:08 PM
Drat, where's the edit button? As the correct screech should read: "Wrong! Johnnie and I! Not me and Johnnie!"
Posted by: Janicket | November 12, 2012 at 02:09 PM
I too have been troubled by the loss of the expected objective case in a coordinate construction for my entire sentient life. However, I read an explanation on Language Log that sounds more plausible than the hyper-correction explanation given by Janicket and many others elsewhere.
In contemporary English, a coordinate conjunction, particularly "and", governs the case of pronouns below it and shields them, so to speak, from the preposition or verb that would govern them in a non-coordinate construction.
I am too conservative to go along with this newish usage myself, but at least there is a cogent explanation for it. Since we are in a transitional period for this usage, there is little consistency. Now you see it, now you don't, sometimes even in the same paragraph or utterance.
Posted by: Jim Milstein | November 12, 2012 at 03:47 PM
Only in America would our helpless children need to be shielded from the wrath of a preposition. Now, how can we protect them from dangling participles?
Posted by: shsavage | November 13, 2012 at 07:38 AM
I think a semi-colon would do the trick; hoping.
Posted by: Jim Milstein | November 13, 2012 at 11:27 AM
What about the horror of:
"If you have questions, speak to Bob or myself."
Beyond gruesome.
Posted by: Beauzeaux | November 13, 2012 at 11:47 AM