Hypercorrectness
In last month’s newsletter, Liz mentioned that one of her grammar-related pet peeves was people messing up their, they’re, and there. I agree. Similarly, I get bugged when people confuse your and you’re, as well as too, to, and two.
That got me thinking about the times I myself mess up those common homophones when I’m typing quickly. I usually type you’re when I mean your because I’m being “hypercorrect,” which is a fancy grammar term that means “wrong.” 😊
Merriam-Webster.com defines “hypercorrect” as “of, relating to, or characterized by the production of a nonstandard linguistic form or construction on the basis of a false analogy (such as ‘badly’ in ‘my eyes have gone badly’).”
I love the example Webster’s gives. People who know their grammar know that “badly” is an adverb. They think that’s how their eyes are “going.” However, in this case, we really want the word “bad,” the adjective to describe the eyes.
The most common hypercorrect activity I see in students’ or even professional writers’ work is the use of the subjective pronoun when the objective pronoun is needed. Subjective pronouns are subjects of the sentence, the ones doing the action: I, you, he, she, it, we, and they. For example: He and I like cats and dogs. Objective pronouns are the ones having things come to them: me, you, him, her, it, us, and them. For example: Cats and dogs like him and me.
However, I’ve often heard speakers say, “Cats and dogs like he and I” or “She gave that to the girls and I.” Those examples are wrong. The pronouns at the end of the sentence should be the objective case: me.
Use “me” or any of the other objective pronouns either after a verb or after a preposition. For example:
That book is about her and me.
She likes Valerie and me. She likes us.
Let the people and me go to the store.*
The one preposition for which many forget the objective case is the word between. This is hypercorrect: “That is between you and I.” It should be “That is between you and me.” And we should also say this: “Between you and me, I like grammar nerds.”
*We are willing to forgive T. S. Eliot on that last one in his poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which starts off with “Let us go then, you and I. …” It really should be “you and me” because it’s “let us.”
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Happy Thanksgiving!