Dear Newsboys:
I understand that "It's the love between you and I" is supposed to rhyme with "When we laugh so hard we cry."
Unfortunately, it's just wrong.
It should be "the love between you and me." "Me" is the object of the preposition "between." It should be in the objective case, as it is in "Correct grammar gushed out of me," or "My education was a metaphorical support beneath me." I mean, think of it: you wouldn't say "between we," would you?
(Would you??)
No, you would say, "Our common passion for the English language pulsed between
us."
So, may I make a suggestion? In order to have both your rhyme and your grammatical street cred, you should make it:
"When we laugh so hard we pee,
It's the love between you and me!
Something beautiful!"
See? Grammar is a wonderful thing.
Comments (5)
I love, love, love your blog. Thank you for yet another gem. Also, please correct my grammar. I strive to live a grammatically correct life.
Love it! When I try to teach this concept to my 2nd/3rd graders (try is the optimum word here), I tell them to take out the "and John" part or the "John and" part. It mkes it easier for them to hear which word is right.
I struggle to teach grammer - to have the time, find good resources (the books they give us are less than worthless), to make things understandable. I worry about how much to teach - if they don't get it from me, will the next teacher teach it? or the next? At some point I know there is a teacher cursing me, "Why don't they know this?!"
I really doubt there's a lot you can do at that age to teach grammatical concepts. You can only get the correct usage in their ears, I suspect. Ten minutes a day of a really high-quality read-aloud is probably the best thing you can do for them.
@scsours - Yeah, but tell that to the people who write our bloody tests! Well, at least I try.
It's getting harder and harder to be a good teacher, isn't it?