Attorney: “Her and her husband were struggling…”

Well, there goes the neighborhood – and the premise of our book, Me and Him Are Killing English!

We advanced the theory in our book that business leaders and professionals are good models for Generation Y because they don’t use “me and him” talk, which we define as inappropriate grammar such as substituting the wrong pronouns for the right ones. A common example is, “Me and him were at the mall yesterday, and….”

The premise was confirmed by our own online research – until now. Until today, we had never read a quote by an attorney that used “me and him” talk, but there it is in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser this morning.

Defense attorney Myles Breiner said the following of an identity-theft defendant in court, in front of God, the judge, other attorneys, witnesses and reporters:

“Her and her husband were struggling to support themselves, their lifestyle, their children. They didn’t want their children to want for anything.”

“Her and her husband were struggling….” Mr. Breiner surely in reflection recognizes that the acceptable way to express the thought was to use “She” instead of “Her” as the subject of the sentence.

This was in court, where one presumes careful thought goes into how attorneys express themselves on behalf of their clients. Or maybe it wasn’t in court; maybe it was in one of those hallway interviews we see on TV.

But does it matter? Doesn’t proper use of the language matter no matter where a professional expounds on the merits of his case?

Note that we didn’t write “him case” in the sentence immediately above. Doing so would have been the logical extension of Mr. Breiner’s misuse of pronouns. If he said “Her and her husband were struggling….,” then it follows that he should have continued, “Them didn’t want their children to want for anything.”

But to his credit, he didn’t say that. So he does know intuitively which kind of pronoun belongs where in a sentence.

Notwithstanding this isolated case, we still have faith in business leaders’ and professionals’ ability to be good role models, so their own children won’t want for good speaking skills that lead to good jobs, promotion and success. "Me and him" talk doesn't.