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Digital Negatives & PT/PD / language



On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Ender100@aol.com wrote:

. ....  I hope you will consider joining Dick and I in this exciting
workshop.
Now Mark, I hope you will consider writing 100 times why "joining Dick and I" is an utterly vile and wretched solecism, one of the worst possible in the English language, as could cause fainting in the aisles at a copy editors' convention (although obviously it aspires to be correct).

Now you may ask why I don't say this offlist.

Because I don't wish to sound wretched myself, and the more it is said, the more the ear expects it. (In fact some friends of mine who, amazingly, are still friends, have to be corrected repeatedly.)

But a hint: It's the compound that throws people off. Children are corrected when they say, "Me and my friend went to a workshop." Yet they wouldn't say "Me went to a workshop." And you wouldn't say "Join I in this exciting workshop." You'd say "Join me."

I trust you will forgive me. I write for the common good as well as my own.

J.

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