Correct Pronouns Make Wise Writing

Walking home from school, children pass within ten feet of my open windows. How many times do I hear "Charlie and me got extra homework," or "Her and I hit the food court"? The problem is that American children are obviously not being taught when to use which form of pronouns. Even the adults admit to confusion about "who" and "whom", some advocating that we just do away with the objective version (whom). Here's a little list to clarify what I'm talking about: SUBJECTIVE PRONOUNS are I, he, she, they and who; OBJECTIVE PRONOUNS are me, him, her, them, and whom.

If you know how to diagram a sentence (or is that a lost art?), you can determine if the word form required is subjective or objective. A quick way to tell is to put the word in question after a preposition such as "to", "from", "by" or "with". Turn the sentence around, e.g., "The teacher burdened Charlie and me with extra homework!" or "The food court was invaded by her and me." Passive sentence, not so good, but I think you see what I mean. The prepositions call for an object (me, her, him, them, whom). The first versions needed subjective pronouns.

The dreaded "who" and "whom" follow the same rules. But this is where people develop a problem that Jack Lynch of Rutgers University calls "hypercorrection" and wind up sounding pretentious:

Hypercorrection is not simply being fussy or a nitpicker or a pedant. The 'hyper' part, from Greek, means 'too much.' It means working so hard to avoid one potential problem that you end up falling into another one.

The cure he suggests is to substitute one of the other pronouns and find which form sounds right. Imagine Jeeves announcing a visitor, whom he first asks, "Whom shall I say is calling?" If Jeeves had tried out "her is calling", he'd immediately know (if he memorized the chart) that the right way is to inquire, "Who shall I say is calling?" "Who" is the subject of the sentence.