Kim Siever’s Blog

The following is a reader submission.

I found your article on “I am he”, and hoped you could settle variations on that. I believe it is “She and I went to …”. Subjective form, but with first person last. And then “He gave it to her”. But can it ever be the compound “her and me”? I keep thinking that you must always fall back to “us”? —Andy

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the great question. It’s actually a pretty simple answer.

Consider these examples:

1. Bob gave candy to her and me.
2. Bob gave candy to us.

The first sentence implies she received candy and I received candy. The second sentence implies he gave candy to the two of us collectively, candy we should share together.

I hope that helps.

Kim

Email me your grammar questions. I’ll be sure to post the question and answer here.

Seen at Grammar Girl:

Other than maintaining formality, there are two valid reasons you might want to use “which” instead of “where.” Many times, you can add a preposition before the relative pronoun “which” to make your sentence quite precise. For example, “The house at which I saw you” has a slightly different meaning from “The house in which I saw you.” If you use “where,” you lose the subtle distinction: “The house where I saw you.”

Read the original post.

Found at the New York Times:

Traditionalists, of course, find nothing wrong with using he to refer to an anybody or an everybody, male or female. After all, hasn’t he been used for both sexes since time immemorial? Well, no, as a matter of fact, it hasn’t. It’s a relatively recent usage, as these things go. And it wasn’t cooked up by a male sexist grammarian, either.

From Grammar Girl:

A common problem in writing today is the false series. It happens when a writer combines three or more seemingly related elements in a series, but the syntax is wrong. When you get the sentence right, you’re said to be using parallel construction.

How to Use Parallel Construction Correctly

From Grammar Girl:

You could perhaps say, “I ate all the cookies. Big mistake.” Here, “big mistake” is a sentence fragment, but it’s OK because it allows you to emphasize your point. “Which” clauses that appear at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph are likewise incomplete sentences, and you are allowed to use them occasionally.

Can You Start a Sentence with “Which”?

This post is part of the Canadian Style series.

4.12 School subjects, courses and degrees

Capitalize the names of languages. Do not cpitalize the names of other disciplines when used in a general sense. Capitalize them when referring to school sbject or the names of particular courses.

I started taking French in grade 6.

I hate doing math in my head.

I took Math until grade 11.