Charlie and I (Really on topic :)

At 7:46 pm -0700 21/9/99, Sally Caves wrote:
>Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
>
>> Around here, one is always taught to speak in the third person,
>> saying "This is he" or "This is she".   Even people who in no other
>> instance use a nominative form in the predicate will use it in this
>> instance, because it's so ingrained, just like in your situation.
>
>When someone asks for my name on the phone, I just say: "speaking!"
Yep - exactly what I say.

Indeed, to this old Britisher "This is he" sounds even weirder & more
stilted than "This is I".  I've never encountered on the phone this side of
the pond.

And at 8:42 pm -0700 21/9/99, Sally Caves also wrote:
>Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>> >Can you imagine saying on the telephone or around a door "It is I"?
>> >You'd be considered a fen-sucking fop.
>>
>> Oh, but some people do say just that over here when answering the door or
>> on the phone!  I just consider them to be unsufferable pedants.
>>
>> Ray.
>
>Better yet; say "'Tis I!" with a straight face!
Hadn't thought of that.  Yes. why not revert to the old Sussex dialect of
my grandparents and say "'Tis Oi" ?

And that interesting.  Although I'd always say "It's me" and find "It's I"
pedantically artificial, yet with the dialect "'tis", I'd automatically say
"'tis oi"; "'tis me" just doesn't sound right.

But then as anyone who examines material on the old  dialects of England,
the use case forms varied across the dialects and often differed from
standard England, whether prescriptivist or colloquial.

Ray.