You Don’t Say

After eight long years, it’s time to say goodbye to President Bush and ponder the legacy he leaves us. Forget the two wars, a trillion-dollar debt, an economy in shambles, Katrina, and an international image that’s a PR nightmare. Number 43 leaves behind a cavalcade of so-called Bushisms that ought to keep us laughing through our tears.

Let’s start with his (mis)pronunciation of the word nuclear, which he invariably mispronounced as nucular.

Then there’s his mangled pronoun usage: “You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”

Yup, he said it, way back in 2001 during a speech in Tennessee.

Six years later, his grammar was still failing when he spoke about No Child Left Behind: “As yesterday’s positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”

Whether you agree or not with Bush’s immigration policy, you’ve got to love this comment he made in 2005: “Those who enter the country illegally, violate the law.” Thanks for making that clear, Mr. President.

Last June, he graced us with this classic example of a misplaced modifer: “I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”

Really? In the Oval Office? If those North Koreans had left the child and abducted Bush instead, they might have save the rest of us a lot of trouble.

Fortunately, the English language is more resilient than the US economy or surely after eight years of Bush’s leadership we would be suffering a linguistic recession as severe as the current economic crisis.

For more on Bushisms, check out these sites:

About.com’s Political Humor

Richard’s Grammar & Composition Blog

San Francisco Chronicle

Slate.com

BBC

Barack Obama must have felt a flush of exhiliration when he stepped onto the stage in Chicago to give his first news conference as president-elect. His first words when he saw the roomful of reporters were “Oh, wow.” Aside from his comment about Nancy Reagan’s seances, he didn’t stumble, at least not politically.

But he did cause me to wince a couple of times when he mixed up his pronouns.

Here’s how Obama responded when he was asked about a planned meeting with President Bush:

“Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush. We are gratified by the invitation.”

“Michelle and I“? Wrong. It should have been “Michelle and me.”

Quick review:

• I is a subject pronoun (Michelle and I are going to the White House).
• Me is an object pronoun (President Bush invited Michelle and me to the White House).

Obama’s mistake is all too common. People are always mixing up their pronouns, especially in spoken language. Obama never would have said “President Bush invited I to meet him….”Yet he stumbled over the compound object when he included Michelle.

Responding to the same question, Obama went on the say, “I’m sure that in addition to a tour of the White House, there is going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the president.”

“Between myself and the president”? Poor choice.

In the first place, don’t use a reflexive pronoun like myself by itself. A reflexive pronoun needs a partner in the form of a noun or other pronoun: Despite the recession, I’m going to treat myself to a new pair of shoes.

Second, don’t use myself in place of I or me. There’s nothing immodest about correctly using the pronouns I and me.  But there’s nothing modest–in fact, there’s something peculiar–about using myself as a substitute for I or me.

And remember mom’s admonishment to put the other person first? In this case, that would have been the right thing to do. Obama should have said, “…there’s going to be a substantive conversation between the president and me.”

As Donna in the new movie musical Mamma Mia!, Meryl Streep sings the wistful ballad “Slipping Through My Fingers.” Her daughter is about to be married and Donna reflects in song how quickly her only child has grown up.

It’s a lovely moment in the film, and Streep carries it off beautifully. Except when she sings these lyrics:

Sleep in her eyes
Her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake.

Her and me? Fingernails on a chalkboard.

OK, I know they’re only song lyrics, and songwriters (Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, in this case) get a certain amount of poetic license when it comes to usage. But there’s no rhyme scheme to preserve here, and the correct pronouns–she and I–sound fine to me. Maybe her and me is easier to sing. I don’t know, but the line sure sounds awkward to this listener.

Anyway, the movie is fun, maybe not as much as fun as the stage show, but worth the price of a ticket, despite the pronoun lapse.