Baseball GM Steps to Plate with Classic ‘Me & Him’

As noted earlier this month, this blog is stepping up its eagle-eyed scrutiny of the media to locate classic “Me and Him” offenses – the grammar-mangling stylings of reporters, athletes, show biz people, etc.

The “etc.” doesn’t include many if any business leaders, however. That’s the point of our book – Me and Him Are Killing English. Those who’ve risen to the leadership ranks generally use the language properly. It’s part of the unwritten job description.

Which leads us to the apology New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya uttered yesterday. The apology's background is everywhere in the sports pages, along with this sentence:

“Me and Adam had a conversation, we had a conversation that stays between us.”

Maybe the apology should have, too. “Me and Adam”….? How does “Adam and I” sound to you, Mr. Minaya? And if you're going to mix up your subjective and objective pronouns, at least you could be consistent. You could have ended your sentence “…stays between we.”

Getting It Right

Now that would have been really ridiculous, and Mr. Minaya got it right. “Between” is a preposition, and “us” is the correct objective pronoun to follow “between,” something Mr. Minaya subconsciously must have known as he formed the sentence in his mind.

The “me and him, her, them….” construction is so widespread in the sports world that the Mets GM slipped into the usage easily. The problem with sloppy verbiage, though, is that “me and him talkers” generally don’t reach the upper reaches of management. Our view is that Mr. Minaya will have to change the way he expresses himself if he hopes to reach the prestigious position of president of a baseball club.

Our little book suggests a simple test of a sentence before it’s uttered to help select the correct word: Drop one of the pronouns. In this case, it’s highly doubtful Minaya would have said: “Me had a conversation…..” He just wouldn’t because he intuitively would recognize how ridiculous that construction would be.

Time does not allow us to aggressively pursue the “me and him talkers” in this space, but we invite readers who trip over this blog to join the pursuit of the English killers. They aren’t hard to find. Like Chicken Man, they’re everywhere!