I LOVE Yvonne Sim’s young grandson’s remarks (Letters, October 14). He said “Where is me going now?” perhaps because his mother spoke motherese to him, and said things like “Mummy wants you to be quiet” instead of “I want you to be quiet”. That sort of talk does not teach children to say “I”.
After Mrs Sim corrected him, saying “Where am I going now?”, he replied “Granny, it is me what is going”. Is this ungrammatical? Well, “what” should of course be “that” or “who”. But there is nothing wrong with “It is me”. “Me” Is not only the accusative case of the pronoun, but also the emphatic form of the nominative “I”. It works like the French “C’est moi” instead of “C’est je”. Similarly we usually say “It’s him, her, them”, and hardly ever “It’s he, she, they”. The little boy is communicating just fine.
Helen Ross,
10 Allan Walk Court, Bridge of Allan.
I ENJOYED Yvonne Sim's account of her grandson's logical approach to English usage. George Bernard Shaw would have approved. He deplored needless complications in structure and spelling; approved American simplifications and had little time for examples such as Cholmondeley pronounced Chumly, or Magdelene pronounced Maudlin.
He claimed that it would be quite legitimate in English to spell the word fish as ghoti. GH for F as in rough tough and the like. O for i, as in women and TI for sh, as in station ration and so on. A right old trouble maker, but good fun.
Jimmie Macgregor,
I'M sure my teacher of English is birling in his grave. My memory tells me that you never parse a sentence (Letters, October 14).
You analyse a sentence to identify its constituent clauses and describe them. You parse the individual words and describe their characteristics.
Michael Elliott
22, Bruce Avenue, Dunblane.
OH, yes, Ian W Thomson (Letters, October 13). Roaming (usually shrieking, demanding) children are the norm. Feral brats in my view but it seems they can do no wrong in the eyes of their parents – to whom parenting is an alien concept. They're a lost cause so don't waste any time there. Instead why not lobby for family sections on planes, in restaurants and the like.
Surely this would be a win/win solution: like-minded people herded together. Bring it on.
Patricia Allison,
Barrland Drive, Glasgow.
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