Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Grammar Rule

Which is correct, to say "Everyone except me," "Everyone, excepting me," "Everyone except I," or "Everyone, I excepted."  Or is there some other formulation that is best?

Answer in the first comment.

4 comments:

  1. Everyone except me. No possible rule, no matter how tightly one can tie it to reasoning about grammar, can overcome the difficulty that all the other choices are never used.

    If no native speaker ever uses a particular construction in a language, it is not part of the language.

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  2. I might say, "everyone, myself excepted." Otherwise, it's got to be "me."

    Marginally related to the distressing modern tendency to say "between him and I."

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  3. Interesting. I didn't know there was a problem. I would probably say "Everyone but me" or "Everyone except me" unless I was being pretentious in which case "Everyone ave me" becomes a possibility.

    "Everyone, myself excepted" sounds like a case violation.

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  4. We'll put a detective on that case, Larry.

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