Re: OT: sorta OT: cases: please help...

Quoting David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

> In a message dated 12/6/01 8:16:41 PM, yl112@CORNELL.EDU writes:
>
> << And
> someone else mentioned (I seem to recall) the colloquial usage in
> English of "it's me" or "that's him" vs. the prescriptivist "it
> is I" and "that is he."  Does anyone know the origins of those
> colloquial forms? >>
>
>     If it's not recent, it just might've come over as a direct
> translation from French when it was fashionable to speak French
> (1700's to 1920's, in America--about).
I somehow doubt that.  Lots of learned borrowings never make headway;
the classic example is the prohibition against so-called split
infinitives.  Most of the big changes in language have been laying
dormant in some dialect or other for hundreds of years until, for
a brief moment, they become popular and start to spread.

I suppose the best way to resolve this would be to do a textual
analysis.  Is Sally still on the list? She's had some experience
with Old amd Middle English texts, and could probably tell us
more about this.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>
                     "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
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