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From: jedhudson@cix.compulink.co.uk ("John Hudson")
Subject: Re: Rogue pronouns
Message-ID: <E05xJq.6Ly@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Compulink Information eXchange
References: <E00D86.7z9@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 23:07:02 GMT
X-News-Software: Ameol for Liberal Democrats
Lines: 28

In article <32726B6B.4C9D@scruznet.com>,

Just you and me(*)

But it's not because I consider the last line another instance of a
"common error".  It's because the more formal variant "Just you and I"
would have actually been in the neighborhood of a rhyme with "lives"; the
"me" is just jarring and I don't understood why they put informality of
register above poetic considerations.

Although it sounds perfectly natural to be, I can see how this
non-standard case agreement could be jarring; what surprises me that so
many people still have trouble with "their" in the singular.  (E.g.
"Everyone should bring their towel along").  It fills an important need in
the language, the need for a gender-neutral third-person singular
pronomial adjective, and does it without introducing any ambiguity or
resorting to ugly neologisms. 

(*)John Wesley Harding brilliantly parodied this as:
This is crap we're singing
We're stoned out of our minds
And we didn't even make it rhyme
Except this bit

-- 
         Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
        (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
                                   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
