Says Who? by Anne Curzan

Author:Anne Curzan [Curzan, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2024-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

IT IS I

As I mentioned in the introduction, I was taught it was proper grammar to respond, “This is she speaking” if someone called and asked, “Is Anne there?” Never mind that this felt over-the-top formal to me and my sisters.

But is it proper grammar? The basis for the prescription goes as follows. To be is a linking verb. Linking verbs roughly equate, semantically, the subject with the predicate noun phrase or adjective phrase that follows it. (If Anne is a wordie: Anne = wordie.) Linking verbs must also, then, equate the subject and the predicate noun phrase grammatically. So, given that the subject is in the nominative case (e.g., I, she, we), then the predicate noun must also be in the nominative case (e.g., “It is I,” “This is she speaking”).

Why does it sound so odd, then, to say, “It is we,” rather than “It is us”? And while we’re at it, here’s another awkward sentence: “I asked who called yesterday, and it was he.” My gut wants to say “It was him,” just like I want to say “It’s me” when someone asks for me on the phone. At the same time, my inner grammando channels my mother and winces.

If you have a similar battle going on in your head, here’s the good news: Many usage guides now say that both “It is me” and “It is I” are acceptable. It is, rather than an issue of grammaticality, an issue of formality. If your inner grammando is not convinced that “It’s me” could possibly be grammatical, remind it that other languages show the predicate noun doesn’t need to be nominative. In French, for example, it is only grammatical to say “C’est moi” (‘It is me’), not “C’est je” (‘It is I’). Joseph Priestley, the descriptively inclined grammarian I mentioned earlier in this chapter, brought up exactly this example from French in the 1700s to defend “It’s me” in English.

Did you, like me, learn that you should say “She’s taller than I” rather than “She’s taller than me”? Either is fine. The question is whether we interpret than as a subordinating conjunction or a preposition. If it’s a subordinating conjunction, the argument is that the full sentence is “She’s taller than I am,” so when it is shortened, it becomes “She’s taller than I.” But than can also function as a preposition (in which case it takes the object case), and there isn’t an especially compelling reason not to let it be a preposition here, so “She’s taller than me.” There are occasionally sentences where there will be ambiguity—for example, “My father called my sister after me.” After can also be a subordinating conjunction or a preposition. So the question is: Did your father call your sister after you called your sister or after he called you? My best advice here: Rather than trying to legislate that everyone, all the time, use than and after and the like as subordinating conjunctions in these constructions, reword the sentence if it might be ambiguous.

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