Many years ago, when I resided in Kansas City, Missouri, I was co-owner of an ad agency, and it was my job, among other things, to interview potential new employees.
Very often, when I asked them to tell me a little about themselves, it was amazing how often they used incorrect English, especially when it came to the use of subjective pronouns vs. objective pronouns. “He” vs. “Him,” and “I” vs. “Me.”
For example, I might ask the interviewee how they obtained my name, and they would say something like:
“Oh, Charlie Bloomberg gave it to me.”
“Really? You know Charlie?”
“Yeh. Him and me played on the same baseball team together.”
Ugh. At that moment the interview, for all practical purposes, was over.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t hold myself up as a paragon of the King’s English, but even today, many high school graduates (and even some college graduates) use incorrect English when it comes to pronouns. I can only assume they slept through class the day it was taught.
I can’t tell you when or where I learned the difference. I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family; my father migrated from Russia, my mother from Poland. And neither of them spoke hardly any English when they arrived in America. Yiddish? Yes. English? No.
Much of what I learned came from my days at Mizzou (where I was a member of the Sammies fraternity). Today, I live in Southwest Missouri with my wife of 42 years, and though I don’t consider myself a Professor Higgins from “Pygmalion,” I can easily spot a local when they use the phrase, “I hear tell…”
Why am I writing this? I hope parents who read what I have written will make a copy of it and give it to their teenage children. It could help them at their first job interview.
Marvin Fremerman lives in Springfield, Missouri.
