Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

} Valentine:
}
}>} I have no sense of humor.
}>
}>Me, neither.
}
} I notice you write "me neither" as "me, neither".  Is the first one incorrect?
} I don't say "me neither" with a pause, but I could see someone would say "me,
} neither".  Is that how you say it?

You serious?  No, it's not how I say it (with a distinct pause, that is.  

Despite what you might hear from the faculty of the Pause School of
Commafication (q.v.; and some of them are distinguished members of other
faculties), commas are not particularly used to indicate pauses, but
rather to indicate structure, which in turn will give you the *meaning* of
pauses.  Punctuation is not merely to let talking heads know how to read a
script without making any effort to understand what is read.  Written
English is not merely a faint shadow of the "real" language: Spoken
English (as some would have it).

Here's an example.  Often the second independent clause of a sentence will
start out sounding like "but if"; and, because it sounds that way, there
are those who shamelessly omit the comma.  At the end of the if clause,
one will almost always see a comma, if only because there is an actual
pause there.  But the "but" belongs to the second independent clause, not
to the "if" clause.  For that reason there must be a comma after the but,
not because there is a protracted pause after the "but"

But that causes a problem, because there is often a comma just _before_
the but, separating the two conjoined independent clauses.  It's possible
to leave it as is in some cases.  If there's any confusion, though, it
should be promoted to a semicolon _even though_ the "but" is there.  Of
course that's way too much for the average punctuator to grok; so the
would-be semicolon stays a comma before the "but", and the comma after the
"but" gets dropped because there's not particular pause there.

The result is wrong.  But talking heads can read it naturally.  Speed
readers can whiz (BrE: "whizz") past it.  All seems right with the world.

But, yes, "Me, neither" is correct, as is "Me, too" (information you may
get from AOL notwithstanding).  "Me neither" and "Me too" are incorrect.

Usually.

} On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, R J Valentine wrote:
}
}> On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:17:07 -0700 Dena Jo <TPUBGTH.don't.use.this.for.email@yahoo.com> wrote:
}>
}> } Joey wrote:
}> }
}> }> Dena Jo:
}> }>
}> }> >> Who's Dena Jo?
}> }> >
}> }> >No one of any consequence.  Go back to sleep.
}> }>
}> }> I will never understand the typical AUEer's sense of humor.
}> }
}> } I have no sense of humor.
}>
}> Me, neither.
}
} But, Coop does.

Sure, Coop.  And even his oddly conjoined twin, when he's not in a snit
about something.

In alt.usage.english, R H Draney wrote:

We've all been there. That's sort of forgivable.

Isn't birdsong more like that fat man with the enormous mobile phone
yelling 'I'M ON THE TRAIN!!!'? (He's just done a US series. Half-Swiss
bloke who likes to dress up in animal costumes. Not very funny, but
oddly compelling.)

Personally, I only hate the dawn chorus when I've been up all night.
(When I haven't been up all night, it don't figure.)

I thought it was more like a stoned pop star raving "Hey! This is me",
although American birds undoubtedly phrase it "Hey! This is I".

Now that's worth keeping.

In alt.usage.english, Ben Zimmer wrote:

I still pronounce 'machismo' with a K. I know it's wrong, it's just that
'matchismo' sounds wronger. (The K pronunciation is standard in Italian,
apparently.)

In alt.usage.english, Raymond S. Wise wrote:

I did - entirely. I stared at your post for quite a while but the
relevance of 'hat' eluded me entirely.

I assure you that the lack of clarity was entirely at this end and also
that there was no discourtesy (unless reading and posting while drunk is
itself discourteous, which it may well be).

[...]

There *was* no hat on Ilkley Moor. That was the problem.
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply