The cure for the common 'Woe Is I'

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the seeds of the I-versus-me problem are planted in early childhood. We're admonished to say, 'I want a cookie,' not 'Me want a cookie.' We begin to feel subconsciously that I is somehow more genteel than me, even in cases where me is the right choice.

-- Patricia T. O'Conner, in "Woe Is I"

'Woe Is I" is my favorite reference book for grammatical rules because the author is able to explain the eccentricities of the English language in a way I can understand.

Other writers may have the same knack for setting straight my grammatical lapses:

"People have been slapped upside the head so many times for saying 'Me and Joe are going to the store' that they are afraid to use the word me at all," according to an e-mail I received last week.

"Just yesterday I read the sentence, 'If you have any questions just get in contact with Manny, Moe, Jack or I. The user would never have written, 'If you have any questions just get in contact with I.' But for some reason when it's appropriate to use me, people go all weak in the knees, remember back to Aunt Maude or Grandma and the dope slaps received as a child and slip that I into the sentence."

Well, in my case, it was my father, educated to become a high school English teacher before a career twist pushed him toward farming in northeastern Oregon, but I get the point.

So here are the rules, courtesy of Patricia O'Conner:

* A pronoun following the verb to be should act like a subject (I, he, she, they) and not an object (me, him, her, them).

"But language is a living thing, always evolving, and It is I is just about extinct. In all but the most formal writing, some of the fussiest grammarians accepts It's me."

* The object follows a preposition.

"It's instinctive to use the correct form (me) when only a solitary pronoun comes after a preposition -- You'll be hearing from me. But when the pronoun isn't alone, instinct goes down the drain, and grammar with it. So we run into abominations like The odds were against you and I, although no one would dream of saying The odds were against I."

My trick for avoiding the I-versus-me trap -- or getting out of it after I've fallen in -- is to make it singular and see what sounds right: You and me should study grammar, or Me should study grammar.

Nope. Make that You and I should study grammar.

The first call on a recent Monday morning challenged me on the headline over this column the day before: Media conspire to objectively inform readers

This was a familiar caller who was not calling about the content of the column. Rather, he was calling about the grammar: Every time we publish a split infinitive, I hear from him -- and we've been hearing from him about this particular grammatical lapse for a number of years now.

Just like that pronoun-subject rule above, this is part of an evolving language. So here's part of a column I wrote nearly 10 years ago (Nov. 10, 1998) that addressed it:

'TO BOLDLY GO ..." That, many would argue, is the world's best known split infinitive.

And now, some 30-plus years after the fact, the Oxford English Dictionary has caught up with "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. In its just-released Oxford American Desk Dictionary, the hallowed O.E.D. has ended its prohibition on split infinitives.

Not all language purists are happy about this newest example of the fluidity of English, however. They argue that the infinitive -- a verb with "to" in front of it -- should never be split. And some of them are downright snooty about it: In an Associated Press story about this latest signal of the end of civilization as we know it, English professor Samuel Pickering responded, "I do not dine with those who split infinitives."

Well, you're missing out on chicken pot pies at my house, Sam.

My late husband would have been one of those Sam would be delighted to dine with -- or, one with whom Sam would be delighted to dine. In Max's school days, the curriculum included classical grammar education. That was refined by several years of Latin classes. So by the time we were married -- when Max was a wire editor and I was a reporter -- he had become my personal grammar police, and I would find red circles around split infinitives throughout stories I wrote.

Dangle a participle, perhaps. Or start a sentence with a conjunction. Those were at least sometimes tolerable.

But Max truly hated split infinitives, and "to boldly go ..." set him off every time he heard the beginning of the innumerable "Star Trek" reruns.

Max died in 1986, and I think back on all those red circles and tirades every time I find a "to" torn asunder from its infinitive. For some reason, it's a very fond memory.

Were Max alive today, the venerable O.E.D.'s decision to finally end the ban on split infinitives would have killed him.

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