I noticed a classic 'standard English' error in David Cameron's speech at the Conservative Party conference recently. He said:
'Let me tell you about Michael Gove and I'
I decided to check the transcript and found it online here:
Independent 10 October 2012 — David Cameron conference transcript
The phrase above had been removed. You can hear it though, around 25 seconds into the video. Not sure whether that reflects a spontaneous change he made while talking or whether someone thought they should tidy it up. I found a comment on it here (from 'PorFavor' who described it as 'appalling grammar').
I don't think Cameron should be embarrassed. This is a common error made by standard English speakers. Interestingly, it seems to be a case of 'hypercorrection', where someone 'over-corrects' themselves when speaking in a variety they're not comfortable with (e.g. Spanish speakers adding /h/ before vowels to compensate for the 'absence' of /h/ in Spanish).
Of course, this raises the question of why standard English speakers 'hyper-correct' when using their own first language, leading some linguists, such as Nick Sobin, to the conclusion that 'Prestige English is not a natural language'
Billy
Yes, that's definitely what it's about and what you've described is classic hypercorrection showing that the speaker is using a variety she/he's not comfortable with, which leads to the conclusion that David Cameron is not using his first language when speaking here. There's good experimental evidence about the different responses to 'I and David' etc. Even stronger evidence that the 'David and I' 'rule' is unnatural in some way is that 'David and we' and 'David and he' are less acceptable than 'David and I'. Will post more references later (off to teach now) B--)
Posted by: billy | October 16, 2012 at 02:58 PM
I've always thought that this particular hypercorrection stems from speakers being over careful about not using 'me' in subject position in utterances like 'Me and David went to the cinema'.
Even though it's something that native speakers (at least in my dialect) say all the time, it seems to be a favourite with prescriptivists. It's right up there with 'less' and 'fewer'...
This '"me"=bad' feeling then seems to carry over to when it is (correctly) in object position.
I've always found it interesting that while 'Me and David...', David and me...' and 'David and I...' are all generally judged acceptable by (non-prescriptive) speakers, 'I and David...' is always always judged as unacceptable. Any ideas why?
Posted by: Kate Scott | October 16, 2012 at 02:49 PM