Bending over backward to be wrong
My daughter was studying for a grammar test and asked me for advice: Is the following sentence correct? 鈥淚nstead of you and I, this year Albert and his date are going to be in charge of plans for the picnic.鈥� My instinct was to say no, it should be 鈥渋nstead of you and me.鈥� But then I thought about the context, my daughter learning tricky grammar, for an exam 鈥� surely it must be more complicated. I decided that the subject pronouns 鈥測ou and I鈥� must be right, because they parallel 鈥淎lbert and his date,鈥� the subjects of the sentence. Actually, the correct answer is 鈥測ou and me.鈥� Because the pronouns are objects of a preposition (鈥渋nstead of鈥�), they must be in the objective (me, him, her, us, etc.) case. I had hypercorrected and gotten it wrong.
Hypercorrection happens when a person overapplies the rules of grammar, spelling, or pronunciation. Young children generally develop an excellent sense of what sorts of constructions are 鈥渞ight鈥� in their native language. Hypercorrection tends to occur in two circumstances: when speakers of a dialect, who have internalized slightly different rules, employ the 鈥渟tandard鈥� language, and when people use what linguists call 鈥減restige constructions,鈥� the sort of grammar learned in school but rarely encountered in everyday life. The cockney dialect of London, for example, drops 鈥淗鈥檚鈥� (Eliza Doolittle鈥檚 鈥� 鈥檃mpshire鈥� and聽 鈥� 鈥檜rricane鈥�). Cockney speakers know there is a 鈥減ronounce H鈥檚鈥� rule in standard English but sometimes overapply it, saying 鈥渉-ouse鈥� and 鈥淗-ampshire,鈥� but also 鈥渉-eir鈥� and 鈥渉-onor.鈥澛�
My difficulties with my daughter鈥檚 question are an example of confusion over a prestige construction. Though in many dialects of English it is normal to say 鈥淗im and me went to the grocery store,鈥� most of us know that in standard English, we say 鈥淗e and I.鈥� We extrapolate from this that the subject form of these pronouns is somehow more formal, and more 鈥渃orrect鈥� all the time, which leads us to favor them when we are pushed out of our linguistic comfort zone.聽
As the term 鈥減restige construction鈥� hints, hypercorrection is intimately bound up with issues of social class. Easy mastery of this sort of grammar seems to show that you are an educated person. Many people thus don鈥檛 look kindly on hypercorrection, assuming it reveals that you are trying to be something you are not. Anthropologist William O鈥橞arr has studied this phenomenon in the language of trial witnesses and found that those who did a lot of it were thought to be less 鈥渃onvincing鈥� and 鈥渃ompetent.鈥澛�
Between you and me 鈥� or as Shakespeare says, 鈥渂etween you and I鈥� 鈥� I think we should be charitable when people hypercorrect.
