We should use grammatically correct Standard English, the stern yet kindly pedants tell us, for our own good. People who don’t use it risk being judged as unintelligent, ill-educated, lazy, obnoxious, unpatriotic, unemployable, immoral, sexually inadequate, and a threat to the fabric of society. If our fellow English speakers form such a bad impression of us, our lives will become pretty tricky.
To avoid this risk, we should learn the rules of English and stick to them. It sounds simple enough.
The only problem is: what if the people judging us for breaking the rules don’t agree with us about what the rules say? What if they’re judging us for being wrong even when we are – we’re sure – we’ve checked – right?
This nightmarish prospect is now a reality, according to a new YouGov poll.
A few days ago, the Princess of Wales put out a statement about her chemotherapy, saying:
I have been blown away by all the kind messages of support and encouragement over the last couple of months. It really has made the world of difference to William and me and has helped us both through some of the harder times.
In response, some of the people who live on the internet grumbled that the phrase “William and me” in the second sentence was wrong, that it should have been “William and I”. In further response, some of the other people who live on the internet harrumphed that in that sentence, “William and me” was in an object position rather than a subject one, and so it was indeed correct, whereas “William and I” would have been wrong.
At school, we get ticked off for saying things like “William and me went to the shops” instead of “William and I went to the shops”. Most of us do say such things as children, and many do even as adults. Something powerfully intuitive buried deep in the English speaker’s brain makes us default to object forms for pronouns a lot of the time. But English teachers try to drill that intuition out of us. In fact, so intense is that training to change “William and me” into “William and I” that a lot of us take this rule further than our teachers meant it to go. The result is sentences with “William and I” in object position (although not in Kate’s case).
How many of us have taken this rule further? That’s what YouGov have looked at, asking people which of the following is grammatically correct:
- It really has made the world of difference to William and me
- It really has made the world of difference to William and I
Just 22% of adults in Britain said “to William and me” was right; a majority, 56%, said “to William and I” was right. 13% approved of either.
“To William and I” was comfortably ahead among men and women; in Scotland, Wales and every region of England; in every age group; among the working class and the middle class; among supporters of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties; the question even united a majority of leave and remain voters.
And now the dreadful dilemma is upon us. The traditional pedants would insist that “to William and I” is a hypercorrection, a mistaken over-application of a rule. But they are the same people who tell us that following the rules correctly is the way to avoid being judged for our bad grammar – and in this case, what they call good grammar is more likely to be judged as bad.
There is no maximally pedantic way of speaking and writing which will save us from the perception of error. We risk being judged no matter what rules we follow. So, what can we do?
Linguists who take a descriptive approach to language might have a neat answer to this. Given that both versions are commonly used, both are thereby grammatically standard and you can use either. Correctness is determined by the facts of usage.
This may be tempting, but there are also the facts of attitudes. If we want to come across well to others, then attitudes to usage are part of the social terrain that we must navigate. And we can’t please everyone. You might decide that one group of people’s attitudes are simply wrong, but that doesn’t make them disappear.
There’s no simple way out. You have to pick one option, and whichever you pick, there will be people who judge you.
At this point I will recite the customary plea that wouldn’t life be easier if we all got a bit less annoyed about minor differences in the English of our fellow citizens, and yes in fact life absolutely would be easier if we did that, except perhaps for those who make a living urging us to get more annoyed about those minor differences. If our concern is how well we come across, then maybe better advice is to not go around offering unwanted criticism of people’s grammar. Maybe we should take particular care to not do that to someone who’s just been telling us how her chemo has been going.
Here’s a scrap of hope, though: the poll may not be as big a deal as it seems.
If we are asked explicitly about rules of grammar, as YouGov asked, we will suddenly sit bolt upright, possessed by the vengeful spirits of our former English teachers, turning our pedantry up as high as it can go. We will feel obliged to declare that X is right and Y is wrong. But in a normal situation – reading a magazine or having a conversation or whatever – we are much more likely to pass over either X or Y contentedly without even thinking about questions of right or wrong.
The risk of being judged is real. But it’s lower than it looks.
Stroppy Editor 