Obama’s personal pronoun problem

February 27th, 2009 at 01:53pm Pat Cunningham

 

 Let’s admit from the get-go here that there ain’t none of us that don’t got difficulties with grammar from time to time.

 It’s just that some folks have more difficulties than others.

 Of course, in the final analysis, the most important thing in speaking or writing is to make oneself understandable — sometimes in more ways than one.

 For example, I would not have had as keen a sense of what Elvis was getting at if he had said, “You aren’t anything but a hound dog.”  Nor would it have sufficed for Mick Jagger to declare: “I cannot get any satisfaction.”

  Then, too, strict observance of certain grammatical rules can be cumbersome if carried to extremes. I, for one, am not going to tell you that ending sentences in prepositions is something up with which we should not put.

 Another thing to remember is that the English language and its rules of grammar are forever evolving, else we’d all be talking like Chaucer.  In many cases, yesterday’s errant usage is acceptable and commonplace today.

 Still, there’s something to be said for employing good grammar in certain situations.  Most of us neither expect nor want Margaret Thatcher to sound like Ma Kettle. We don’t want Brian Williams or Charles Gibson to come off as cast members of “Hee Haw.” We’re glad that the great speeches by Lincoln, FDR and Martin Luther King were grammatically solid.

 Good grammar also can be important in making social and career advancements.  If you sound like Gomer Pyle, you’re not going to go far as a public-relations specialist or enjoy great social mobility.

 All of this brings us to the subject at hand: President Obama’s occasional PROBLEM with the pronouns “I” and “me.” It’s no big thing, really, and it’s not a mistake that isn’t commonly made by countless otherwise articulate people.

 Nor are Obama’s grammatical lapses nearly as frequent or egregious as those of his immediate predecessor in the White House.

 But it’s good, I think, that the president is sometimes gently faulted for his grammar mistakes, as he is in the piece to which I linked.

 I don’t mind being corrected for bad grammar (if you find a problem herein, bring it on), and I love to correct those people who also annoy me on matters having nothing to do with grammar.

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