Prince William Joins Kobe

At a recent tribute to his late mother Princess Diana, Prince William graciously spoke to all those contributing to the success of the event. "It remains for Harry and I to...thank you...." he said with a charm reminding you of his mother's own appeal.

William's problem stems from using the subject pronoun "I" after the preposition "for." Pronouns following prepositions should be objective case pronouns. William should have used "me."

It remains for Harry and me to thank you.

It is easy to see where William went wrong. He was thinking, Harry and I want to thank you which is grammatically correct because no preposition lies in wait. Both Kobe and William may be forgiven for misspeaking; difficult to edit yourself while talking. We are hopeful these two celebrated individuals make no similar mistakes while writing.

Kobe Bryant's Misuse of Personal Pronoun, Nothing Personal

On May 28th we had to issue a citation to appear in "grammar court" to Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers who said, "...the Lakers and me just have two different visions for the future."

Is it just all about "me"? Perhaps, yet in this case, "I" can mean "me" and be the correct grammar choice, sort of a "two for one" deal for Kobe.

Grammatically, Kobe's sentence contains a compound subject, two subjects. Because a subject lies in the subjective case realm (also called nominative case), it must actually be a subject. Although "me" is in the subject position, it is not a subjective case personal pronoun but a an objective case pronoun. Things happen to it; it does not do things. A common solution to the problem is to use each choice alone letting your ears do the work:

The Lakers have a different vision for the future works.

Me have a different vision for the future clearly does not work. The correct choice is I.

Kobe might have said: I have a different vision of the future from the Lakers as they have not done enough for me.

Provide Energy to Your Writing

After having composed all thoughts and having set them down in your "final draft," review your essay or paper and try to eliminate the following words from your writing: get, do, make, have, be. Eliminate all their forms as well: get, getting, got, gotten; do, doing, did, done, etc. Note, eliminating all the forms of be: am, are, is, was, were, be, been, being is perhaps not possible, nor desirable.

Inserting action verbs, where possible, will provide your writing verve (force, energy, zing). Allow get, do, make, have, and be to function as helping verbs which "help" the main verb (notional verb) do it's work.

Lacking energy: Fitzgerald made his reputation about Americans who got rich after World War II.

Energetic: Fitzgerald's stories emphasized those Americans who achieved great wealth after World War II.