Pedants' Paradise

[Roehre]

Clearly you don't believe that English has disjunctive pronouns (cf 'C'est moi.')! I do.

As I do (see post #600)

[french frank]

Fowler (and I have to say, not surprisingly to me), under disjunctive has only heard of disjunctive conjunctions (e.g. or, but) but does not mention disjunctive pronouns at all.

In his discussion of 'me' in 'It's me', he says it is 'perhaps the only successful [sic] attack made by me on I'. The notion of an 'attack' wraps up the question for me. He nowhere speaks of 'me' as a disjunctive pronoun.

Compared with French, the difference lies in the fact that it has always been incorrect to say 'C'est je': the disjunctive pronoun must be used.

It is still not incorrect to say 'It is I', merely stilted and over formal. ('It's I' sounds daft).

[gurnemanz]

Things are less contentious in German where no pronoun is ever permitted to be in the "wrong" case. "Mich" can only be accusative and "mir" only dative. No nonsense with disjunctive or emphatic pronouns is tolerated.

"It's me" comes out as "ich bin es". (I am it).

For some reason the Mörike poem "Er ist's" comes to mind. "Er" (he) refers to the masculine Spring which is arriving. A literal translation would be "It is it" which doesn't convey much. You have to say something like "It's here!".

Wolf's exuberant setting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzN7wBy83X4

[french frank]

Also, the true meaning of 'disjunctive' is to separate or disconnect. This is clearer in a sentence like, 'Moi, je n'aime pas ça' rather than in 'C'est moi'.

Unlike English, French doesn't emphasise words by giving them a heavy stress, and 'je' is always unstressed. If you want to convey stress, you have to say, 'Moi, je ....' In a case like that, certainly in speech, English can just stress the word I (Well, I don't want to'). A disjunctive pronoun isn't a necessity.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It is still not incorrect to say 'It is I', merely stilted and over formal. ('It's I' sounds daft).

I read an old Superman comic recently: Lois Lane was watching a cartoon film in which she herself appeared. She pointed at the screen and said to Clark Kent:"That's I". You wouldn't see that very often nowadays.

[french frank]

Thanks for the poem, gurnemanz. I did not know Ich bin es was how to say It's me ...

[french frank]

I read an old Superman comic recently: Lois Lane was watching a cartoon film in which she herself appeared. She pointed at the screen and said to Clark Kent:"That's I". You wouldn't see that very often nowadays.

That sent me scuttering off to find another example. I didn't find one - not the same, anyway.

Recently?

[Pabmusic]

Doubtful whether it originally wasn't used as such in English, as it is grammatically perfectly correct to use it in Friesian (and therefore not only in French), the former being one of the main sources of influence of Old-English.....

Not exactly. Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, is the name given to closely related dialects of West German, spoken around (modern) southern Denmark, the Frisian islands, and parts of Germany and northern Holland (in other words, the location for The Riddle of the Sands). It is often said that the modern Frisian dialect gives a flavour of how English would have been if there'd never been the later French (and other) influence, but it would be wrong to think that modern Frisian influenced Anglo-Saxon. Someone (was it you?) said there are strong similarities today between Frisian and the dialect of the Fens.

But your main point is good - if the usage is found in modern Frisian (I've no idea) that might indicate a common source with English. I've just thumbed through an AS grammar, but I can't see anything helpful. However, English has always been willing to adopt expressions so that they become idioms, and grammarians write reams in trying to explain them, but it's all rationalisation. "It's me" is certainly idiomatic and can't really be faulted for that reason.

It's not much different really from "aren't I?" - about which there was some talk a while ago - which is a modern idiom from the early 20th Century, based on a misunderstanding of "amn't I?" and an unwillingness to use "ain't I?" any more in polite conversation. (I suspect Bertie Wooster hung on to "ain't I?" long after it went out of fashion.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I read an old Superman comic recently

More Also sprach than Alpensinfonie?

[french frank]

Clearly you don't believe that English has disjunctive pronouns (cf 'C'est moi.')! I do.

Getting back to this point (with which M. Vinteuil and Roehre agreed), there seems to be an element of technical terminology here. If you look up 'disjunctive' in the OED, the relevant entry [disjunctive adj.] reads:

"3 b. In French Grammar, sometimes applied to the indirect nominative (and objective) case of the personal pronouns (moi, toi, lui, eux) as distinguished from the direct nominative (je, tu, il, ils), called in this nomenclature conjunctive."

Again, 'disjunctive n.' reads:

" 2. Grammar. A disjunctive conjunction"

No mention of English disjunctive pronouns, so contra mundum, I stick to my original point in #599:

I would consider it a (technically ungrammatical) colloquialism (rather than a proper disjunctive usage).

That was really my point: that even if it is 'ungrammatical' - in quotes, of course - it's nevertheless perfectly acceptable.

This quote is interesting:

1803 S. T. Coleridge Let. 14 Aug. (1956) II. 974 Sloth, carelessness, Resignation is not merely in me; it is me. (Spite of Grammar—i.e. Lowth's—for I affirm, that in such instances ‘it is me’, is genuine English & philosophical Grammar.)

It's clear that in 1802, though Coleridge knew the expression 'It is me' he didn't consider it grammatical in the so-called 'disjunctive' usage. It is grammatical in the way he uses it, in the same way that Rimbaud's 'Je est un autre' was grammatical.

PS On ' even if it is 'ungrammatical' - in quotes, of course - it's nevertheless perfectly acceptable' - another example being the one Pabmusic made: 'aren't I' which is certainly 'ungrammatical' in that we don't say 'I are'. But since it has become idiomatic, strict grammar doesn't matter.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the poem, gurnemanz. I did not know Ich bin es was how to say It's me ...

No wonder, then, that my one-time girlfriend, from Hanover, had to explain to her non-English speaking friends what I meant when I said, "Es ist mich!"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

More Also sprach than Alpensinfonie?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

To change the subject, what about "aitch" and "haitch"? I always thought the latter was people in the East Midlands aspiring to be posh, but failing to do so. However, there's more to it than that. Apparently in N. Ireland it can indicate whether you are a Protestant or a Catholic.

[french frank]

Dunno about N.I. - but the 'haitch' pronunciation is spreading inexorably. My younger niece, born and brought up in the West Country, pronounced it 'haitch' the other day. The logic is stronger than local custom.

[Serial_Apologist]

Dunno about N.I. - but the 'haitch' pronunciation is spreading inexorably. My younger niece, born and brought up in the West Country, pronounced it 'haitch' the other day. The logic is stronger than local custom.

It's West Indian vernacular I think. That's hall I know.