Work has really slowed down because of the holiday season, so I'm a little bored!! I came across this article as I was trying to keep myself entertained at work.
Are Me and Him Ruining the Movies?
I must be getting old, because things I hear in the talkies -- oops, the movies -- are really starting to get my goat. Let's make an example out of two recent flicks: "High School Musical 3" and "Madagascar: Escape 2 [sic] Africa." An early scene in each contains the same hideous grammar error -- the use of me where I belongs.
From "Madagascar": "You and me are different, son."
From "High School Musical": "Me and my dad built this tree house."
It gives me the shrivels to hear this sort of dialogue. It's not English; it's Caveman (or "Cavemanglish," if you want to make a portmanteau out of it). Only two characters can get away with talking like that: Tarzan and Cookie Monster. Everyone else needs to know the difference between I and me.
Actually, almost everyone else needs to know this. There are exceptions in high places, though it pains me to admit it.
When Bill Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination in 1992, for example, he goofed twice, saying, "My mother was busy raising my brother and I," and "Give Al Gore and I a chance to bring America back." This is called "hypercorrection" -- he was avoiding using me to sound extra proper.
It's proof, probably unnecessary, that you can be the leader of the free world even if you don't understand how to use pronouns.
Rule No. 1:
I is the subject. Its official name is a nominative pronoun. All this really means is that it's standing in for your subject.
So, use I when the pronoun you need is working as the subject of a clause or a sentence. I built this tree house. My dad and I built this tree house.
This isn't hard to remember. If you find yourself getting confused when there are two subjects, drop one out. Everything should become clear. Even Troy Bolton probably wouldn't say, "Me built this tree house."
Other pronouns can stand in for your subject, too. They are you, he and she, we, and they. So, you'd say, "He and Troy built the tree house," not "Him and Troy built the tree house."
Rule No. 2:
Me is the object. Its fancy name is an objective pronoun. It means it's standing in for your object.
So, use me when your pronoun works as an object in the sentence or clause. A pronoun can be the object in two ways:
• It can be the object of a verb. For example: The sushi (your subject) made (your verb) me (your object) sick. The movie gave Monica and me a fright.
• It can be the object of a preposition. For example: She sent the letter to (a preposition) me.
Likewise, use you, him, her, us and them to stand in for your objects.
There. That's it. Can you believe people get this wrong so often? And one last thing. That old tar pit -- it is I vs. it is me -- can be crossed off your list of things to worry about. Either one is fine, though the latter is best for informal contexts.
I went to Munich this last weekend with Aaron, Amanda and Matt. It was great! I love Christmas Markets! They're soooo relaxing. All you have to do is wander around the little craft stands and drink Gluhwein. I added another 5 or so cups to my gluhwein collection! Looks like we'll have new mugs to drink out of at the gluhwein party on Dec. 20th!
This is weird, but interesting! Let everyone know whether or not you can read it by clicking on the poll to the left.
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Azanmig huh? yaeh andI awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
So this week has been a little crazy!
Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, work has been completely chaotic. Report after report has been requested regarding Lehman's revenue and debt. And through this I have realized that our information systems are crap! It is WAY too hard to get reliable data. Which is shitty when trying to get a Lehman's report to Upper Management, but it is good because it gives me lots to talk about for my next paper on managing information systems and how our company uses them. I can now say that the company I work for uses them very poorly!
But away from work now . . . .
Monday night I went to the show Rainman. Josh Hartnett and Adam Godley were the stars. Josh played Tom Cruise's character and Adam played Dustin Hoffman's character. The show was good, but the best part about it was that we (Tanya, Cecile, Aaron and I) got Josh's autograph afterwards. We waited by the stage door with lots of other screaming girls (no one was actually screaming, but it's more fun to say that!). I was jammed up right in the front row center. It was awesome. He is very good looking (but not as good looking as my lovely boyfriend Becker!!). And when he was handing back my ticket with his autograph he looked straight into my eyes! Dreamy!
Tuesday night I went to Brick Lane (street near Liverpool Station that has tons of Indian restaurants). I went there with 8 other interns. The best part about Brick Lane is that you get to haggle with the doormen for the price of your meal. The restaurant that we ended up eating at gave us a free round of drinks and 30% off our bill. So the total bill for 9 of us ended up being £70 (only about £8 per person). An unheard of amount for drinks, appetizers, and main meal anywhere in London! It was very scrumptious! I had chicken malayan, which is chicken and pineapples in a creamy sauce. Mmm mmm good!
In other news, mom and dad are coming tomorrow (with my newly fixed computer! excited). Their plane lands at 12:15pm. I am unable to take the day off in order to go and get them. I have given mom extensive details on how to get to my flat from the airport. Hopefully they make it!!! I'm looking forward to seeing them at my flat when I get home from work on Thursday night.
Their initial time in London will be unfortunately short. Our flight takes off for Salzburg at 6:30am (ewwww) on Friday morning. Mom, dad, and I have already been to Salzburg, so while our other four travel partners (Candace, Tanya, Mike, and Teresa) are touring around, we'll probably either be at the bar or napping!! Saturday will be Oktoberfest and then we'll be heading back to London on Sunday. I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time! Maybe I'll even let mom be a celebrity blogger on my blog to talk about her time in Salzburg, London, and at Oktoberfest. We'll see if she's nice to me!
So this last weekend at home was a success (maybe too much of a success because I was pretty sad when I got back to work in London).
My flight flew into Minnesota on Thursday night at 5:30pm. I flew during the day and was unable to sleep on the plane ride (watched 3 movies: Batman Begins, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Cars). Right from the airport I went to J'Cos to hangout with the Softball ladies. It was a good time. It was great to see them again. Hopefully they're not too upset that I will not be able to play softball again next year! But I'll be there in 2010! Around 11pm it was off to bed for me. I had been up since 7am London time, which is 1am Minnesota time. So I had been up for almost a day and needless to say, I was tired.
Friday was a much needed haircut and then Mom cooked a lovely dinner of roast beef and Mashed Potatoes. Oh and I also had Chipotle for lunch!! Mmm mmm good! I missed food with flavor! Saturday was Amy and Kyle's wedding. It was beautiful! We danced the night away and I was able to see Kari Dykhoff (a CSB hockey player that I hadn't seen in a long time!). The next morning we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. 6 parmesan garlic wings with buffalo chips and cheddar and southwestern ranch sauce! Wonderful! After lunch we headed to Liz and Shadder's for a get together. It was great to see all the cousins and Tom Thumb Brian again! And Liz made some yummy pizzas!
Monday was my last day at home and the only day that I did not have a ton planned. I woke up late (10am, which was pretty good considering I woke up at 4:30am on Saturday morning) and then headed to Arby's for lunch for a scrumptious roast beef and cheddar sandwich and potato cakes!! Then headed to Champps (got a real big and juicy burger!) where I met MJ, Bev, Tim, Marge, Tom, and Kat. Then it was off to the airport.
Talk about a quick and crazy vacation. At least when I come home for Christmas it will be for 2 weeks rather than 4 days!
So now it's back to work. Wednesday (my first day back) was overly busy. I had to fix a bunch of things and get the month end pack ready in a day. I stayed until a little after 6pm, but probably could have stayed 2-3 more hours. There was that much that still needed to be done, but I figured it could all wait until today.
And it could! Everything got finished today and BGC/Cantor Fitzgerald also had it's Charity day event. BGC/Cantor Fitzgerald use to have it's headquarters in New York in one of the twin towers. However, on September 11, 2001 the planes crashed into the buildings and BGC/Cantor Fitzgerald lost all of their New York employees. Now the headquarters are in the building where I am currently working. For the last 4 years, they have had a charity day every September 11th. All of the brokerage made and salaries for the day are given to charity. Apparently last year they raised around $12 million. Hopefully this year we do as well!
What's exciting about charity day is that there are a bunch of celebrities hanging around. Prince Charles, Kevin Spacey, Jerry Hall and Mark Williams (Arthur Weasely from Harry Potter) walked by my office. Some of my co-workers actually got to shake Prince Charles' hand and talk to him. Crazy! Of course most of the celebrities were British so I had to google most of them! I don't know the British Celebrities and Sports Personalities. Should have been in BGC New York, probably would have known more people there!!
Well anyways. Being home was great and now I'm already missing it :( 3 1/2 months until I'll be home for Christmas! And those 3 1/2 months are going to be very busy. I have every weekend but 1 planned! I have classes every other weekend and then I am traveling to Brussels, Munich, and Colmar France. MJ is also coming to visit one of those weekends. So it should go by pretty fast!
After a nice night of beer, Aaron and I headed out to Kew Palace. A garden and palace southwest of London. The Palace was nice. It was just a little one compared to all the others around. The gardens were much more interesting. There was a ton to do there. They had a bunch of green houses with tropical plants, water plants, and others. There was also a tree top walk, which we didn’t get to go on because it started to rain and got cold :( I'll have to make it back there on a nicer day.
Saturday night we headed to the movie theater to see the Mummy 3. It was an ok movie. Nothing too terribly interesting. But I guess the last movie I saw was the Dark Knight which was amazing, so I might be being a little unfair to the Mummy 3. Oh well!
Sunday I spent the day lounging around trying to fix my computer. It got a virus :( I wasn't able to bring it back to health. Hopefully Becker's wonderful roommate will be able to fix it for me when I'm home in 3 weeks, because it is driving me crazy!! I am now in the library typing my blog because I can't get to my blog from my laptop :( It's VERY frustrating.
