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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4848 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 17 of 21 28 June 2012 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, the Oxford online dictionary has it also, so saying "thusly" didn't exist was a bit harsh. However, all dictionaries state that it's informal and non-standard English, and to my mind, adding the adverb marker to what is already an adverb sounds very strange. Again: prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar...
Be that as it may, I think we can all agree that "He invited my wife and I" isn't good English. But I recently even heard it in an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so it doesn't seem to be an uncommon mistake. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5564 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 18 of 21 28 June 2012 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the responses, and especially all those of you who felt able to vouch for my continuing robust mental health [Spanky].
It seems like I'm the only one who thinks it sounds better as "my Wife and I" though, so I shall convey the majority verdict of the court to my correctee. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hertz Pro Member United States Joined 4517 days ago 47 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 21 25 July 2012 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Your examples are interesting. By substituting other verbs for "let" it changes the character of the sentence:
My cousin Jim allowed my wife and me to borrow his cottage. My cousin Jim took my wife and me to rent a movie. My cousin Jim ordered the dog to sit. It's definitely an infinitive form, but for sone reason My cousin Jim let my wife and me to borrow his cottage ...sounds wrong. "Let" must be a grammatical exception. As for the difference between "invited my wife and I" and "invited my wife and me," you can tell which is correct by reversing the order. "Jim invited I and my wife" is just plain bad. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6586 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 20 of 21 09 August 2012 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||
I know that in Swedish, there are three categories of these kinds of verbs: the ones that require "to" ("att" in Swedish), the ones that disallow it, and the ones for which both are correct. I suspect it's the same in English. So no infinitive "to" in "I let/watched/heard him go" or "I would/could/must go". However, you do need a "to" in "I told/wished for/asked him to go" and "I want/have to go". However, I can't think of any in English where both are correct, even though this category is big in Swedish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5230 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 21 of 21 16 August 2012 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
When nobody uses them any more, things sound unusual. That doesn't make them incorrect if you still speak the same language. As for why try to get people to use any language as established before they arrived-- it goes beyond labelling language uses as right or wrong. I feel there's something deeply wrong in breaking up with (going frontally against) precedents just for the sake of it, or out of plain ignorance, as it is usually the case. Nothing against real innovation, though. Now, as English speakers are notably more resilient (or is it allergic?) to prescriptivism than others, I am immensely curious about what these 'rules' you're all talking about may be, and where to find them... is anyone trying to create some prescriptive body of sorts for English somewhere? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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