Saturday, November 08, 2008

Excuse Me While I Teach Grammar to the New President

Juliet's Balcony

From: Anonymous [noreply-comment@blogger.com]

Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 8:33 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Excuse Me While I Teach Grammar to the New Preside....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Excuse Me While I Teach Grammar to the New Preside...":

I think Elia made this same mistake before in one of her speeches to people.

What a joke she is to lead an entire district. Her deficiencies go way beyond grammar mistakes. I bet Obama will at least be able to make informed decisions that take all stakeholders into account, something Elia is unable to do.

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From: Anonymous [noreply-comment@blogger.com]

Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 8:42 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Excuse Me While I Teach Grammar to the New Preside....

Elia heads a school system, yet she can't write her way out of a paper bag. She makes $300,000 a year because the ignoramuses who are board members share her philosophy that literacy doesn't matter.They covered up Elia's pre-planned hiring by advertising "nationwide" and using $35,000 of taxpayer money to pay for this cover-up. We do not deal with ethical people on the board or in the administration.

I nearly had a hissy recently when I found out Steve Hegarty, head of Public Affairs, got a raise of over ten thousand dollars, upping his take to almost $102,000, during the two years he has held the job despite his not being able to put a comma in the right place if his life depended on it. Public Affairs is about giving written information out to the public, folks. Lee

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Excuse Me While I Teach Grammar to the New Preside...":

This is one of the most made mistakes, b/c people have gone overboard in correcting the "Michelle and me" b/c they have been corrected in doing that, but they don't realize they were corrected, b/c they used it as the subject. As the object it should be, as you say, "Michelle and me," but when speaking I hear so many people make this mistake b/c they are over-correcting and not thinking.

This is why a second language should be stressed in education. Learning a second language helps you understand the structure of your own language.



Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:27 PM


Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:33 PM

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Presidential-elect Abuse of Pronoun Case


Mr. President: In your Chicago speech or maybe it was your first press conference, you said that the Bushes "invited Michelle and I [sic] to the White House."

The "I" should be "me" for object of the verb "invited."

For two years I sent you all my money saved from not buying a single dress or pair of shoes. That sacrifice requires a president who knows pronoun case. If you learned Constitutional law, you can master pronoun case.

Lee Drury De Cesare

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is one of the most made mistakes, b/c people have gone overboard in correcting the "Michelle and me" b/c they have been corrected in doing that, but they don't realize they were corrected, b/c they used it as the subject. As the object it should be, as you say, "Michelle and me," but when speaking I hear so many people make this mistake b/c they are over-correcting and not thinking.

This is why a second language should be stressed in education. Learning a second language helps you understand the structure of your own language.

Anonymous said...

I think Elia made this same mistake before in one of her speeches to people.

What a joke she is to lead an entire district. Her deficiencies go way beyond grammar mistakes. I bet Obama will at least be able to make informed decisions that take all stakeholders into account, something Elia is unable to do.

Anonymous said...

'As the object it should be, as you say, "Michelle and me," but when speaking I hear so many people make this mistake b/c they are over-correcting and not thinking.'

This is another common error. Misplaced modifiers regularly produce hilarious results. Did you mean that when you were speaking the people make the mistake (as you have written) or that the people make the mistake when they were speaking?

There is a difference here between your error and Obama's. Most of the English-speaking world knows exactly what Obama meant, but your ambiguity means that I don't know what you are trying to say.

Anonymous said...

The only language the ROSSAC people know is the international language (sex). It is truly a casting room couch over there, so I think the title of your blog fits. Everyone in the district knows that the people in the ROSSAC building would make any daytime soap opera or Dallas or Dynasty look like Mr. Rogers. All sorts of things are going on in ROSSAC.