Speak good English: Get it correct
Last week we began looking at the objective questions I had given you to go over the previous week.
We said the pronoun we were looking for as answer to question 2. was me, which is in the subjective case, because in English the pronoun we use after a preposition is the pronoun in the subjective case.
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Now let's continue with the rest of the questions.
3. Kofi and --- are expected to do this work.
a) myself b) I c) me d) meself
The correct answer is b --- I --- because we must see the noun Kofi and the pronoun as the subjects of the verb are.
In other words, both Kofi and the pronoun are the 'doers' of the verb and so the pronoun CANNOT be in the objective case.
Note that a pronoun in the objective case can only 'receive' or 'suffer' from an action, not perform that action.
So, for instance, we say or write:
He beat her (NOT Him beat her).
I caned them (NOT Me caned them).
She slapped him (NOT Her slapped him).
As you can see, the pronouns HE, I and SHE are used in the sentences above to perform action, and so we say they are in the subjective case, while the pronouns HER, THEM and HIM are used to receive the actions performed by the subjective case pronouns, for which reason we say HER, THEM and HIM are in the objective case.
Another way to determine the correct pronoun to use in the sentence we are looking at is to remove the noun Kofi and see which form of the pronoun we will use.
If we take out the noun Kofi, we are more likely to say or write:
I am expected to do this work.
NOT
Me is expected to do this work.
So the correct sentence is:
Kofi and I are expected to do this work.
Other examples of the sentence are:
The girl and we (NOT US) have been punished.
Mr Oti and they (NOT THEM) left for Kumasi this morning.
Eugenia and she (NOT HER) deserve compensation.
Question 4. is:
The teacher punished Kofi and ---.
Here, the correct answer is a --- me —because we should see Kofi and the pronoun as the sufferers of the verb punished, and so the pronoun should be in the objective case --- me --- not the subjective case --- I.
Again, if you take out Kofi from the sentence, you are more likely to say or write:
The teacher punished me (NOT The teacher punished I).
(To be continued.)
