 |
Me and my car are being creative with grammar
If you dip into our mailbag, you’ll find a small but passionate group of TerraPass customers who are shocked — shocked! — that we would so blithely degrade the English language with our slogan “Me and my car are doing something good for the planet.” All right-thinking people know that the proper formulation is “My car and I are doing something good for the planet.” For the children’s sake, won’t we mend our ways? A typical example: “Me and my car are doing something good for the environment” is horribly improper English! “Me am doing something …?” Obviously, it should read as “My car and I are doing …”, as in “I am doing something good…” Obvious perhaps, but not necessarily true. Our normal response is to protest weakly that, while our slogan may be technically incorrect, it reads more smoothly the way we’ve phrased it. And with this demurral, we tactily admit that we’ve allowed marketing to trump grammar. No longer. Today we’re going to take a stand. We’re going to jump into the grammar wars with both guns blazing and declare that “Me and my car” is perfectly cromulent English! Hold your head up high and say it together: “Us and our cars are doing something good for the planet!” As with so many things in life, it all boils down to whether you’re a descriptivist or a prescriptivist. Descriptivists believe that the so-called “rules” of grammar are a formalism used to describe the way people actually talk. And the way people talk changes over time. Otherwise we’d all still be speaking like Hamlet, or worse, Beowulf. Logically, then, if a grammatical “mistake” becomes common enough, it eventually ceases to be a mistake. The rules of grammar adapt to real-world usage, not vice versa. This is so obviously true as to be uncontroversial, but the implication is somewhat startling: there is no such thing correct or incorrect English, just more or less common English. The most eloquent spokesman for descriptivism is Steven Pinker, a linguist at MIT, author of the stellar book The Language Instinct, and hero of the TerraPass marketing department. In an extensive excerpt in the Atlantic Monthly, Pinker addresses the “me and my” tempest. Probably no “grammatical error” has received as much scorn as “misuse” of pronoun case inside conjunctions (phrases with two parts joined by and or or)….[But if] even former Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors can’t seem to avoid Me and Jennifer are going and Give Al and I a chance, might it not be the mavens that misunderstand English grammar, not the speakers? Preach on, Brother Pinker! Click through to the article to see Pinker’s entire defense of the “me and my” formulation, as well as a description of some high-profile smarties who have made the same rhetorical judgment as TerraPass. On the other hand, we have the prescriptivists, a rule-bound lot who argue that grammar isn’t just meant to describe what people are saying but rather to prescribe what they should be saying. There’s right English and there’s wrong English, the prescriptivists feel, and grammar tells us which is which. William Safire is probably the most famous prescriptivist, but he’s also a boor. Fortuntely prescriptivists can also claim David Foster Wallace as one of their own, and he has turned in a breathtakingly fun defense of prescriptivism in Harper’s Magazine. Wallace bases his argument on aesthetic grounds, which is a good thing, because it’s really the only ground he has. It’s not so much that grammatical rules hold any universal or moral authority, Wallace concedes in his typically digressive way. It’s just that grammatical language is often better than un-grammatical language in various subjective but important ways. Just because lots of people say something, Wallace wants us to understand, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good or proper way to say it. Fair enough. We’re sympathetic to Wallace’s viewpoint. But we also reserve the right to make our own aesthetic judgments. And in this case, we’re sticking with me and my car. Comments21 comment(s) on this post. Leave your own!
Post a comment |
|
Now you don't be stopping there, Grasshopper. Get your maw around the whole hog and go for "Us and our cars is doing something good for the planet."
Reply
Isn't it harder to convince people that TerraPass is a smart idea when your slogan makes you and your customers look stupid?
Reply
I'm with Skip!!! It literally (and I use that term correctly) sets my teeth on edge when I hear educated articulate people misusing "me" and "I." It diminishes their credibility. If they can't retain simple (and I do mean simple) rules of English, how can I trust that the information they spew is accurate? How do I know they're remembering what they were taught? They can't seem to do it with their mother tongue!
It also reeks of laziness. It's so much easier to speak without thinking than to choose the correct words in an order that makes sense. Good grammar is a habit as much as anything -- much in the way that making eco-friendly choices is a habit.
PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH!!!!
Reply
I'll agree that "me and my car" is a very grating slogan. I feel that it is unfortunate that this is such a prominent marketing line for TerraPass. On the other hand, somehow "my car and I" sounds stilted and overly formal in the context of a campaign featuring happy twenty somethings in the grass in front of a Ford Focus. (Perhaps "my car and I" should be joined with a picture of a forty something professor in front of a Volvo wagon....)
I know the marketers are trying to seem colloquial and hip...but to my 39 year old ears "me and my car" is distractingly irritating. This is not at all in keeping with the marketing genius behind TerraPass; you guys hit a sour note on that one.
Reply
I'm down with many nouveu language creations and sometimes use them myself. For instance, the Apple "Think Different" campaign did not cause me distress. i use "me and..." but only when i'm being obviously colloquial, usually when i'm talking to (or acting like) a child. However i am motivated to agree with those who feel that the use of "me and my car" sounds clumsy at best and ignorant at worst. As a marketing device it seems like a stretch. Whom, exactly, are you trying to reach out to, with the use of that phrase? Certainly not the people intelligent enough to understand what the Terra Pass is all about.
Reply
Not to be rude, but isn't TerraPass as a concept sort of prescriptivist? I mean, people ARE choosing SUVs (and yes, SUVs have been losing market share, but only because of the price of gas or, rarely, security concerns, and not environmental concerns). People ARE polluting. People ARE changing the climate. And now you folks, of all people, are telling me that I should just get on the bandwagon because if something simply IS HAPPENING therefore it must be right, and to maintain otherwise is to be not only the one who is actually ignorant, but a killjoy? Wow, I can get that kind of energy lots of places... never thought I'd encounter it here.
As much as I love TerraPass, I will never put that bumper sticker on my car,
because it would embarrass me. And I disagree with your opinion that it sounds better your way.
Reply
I am unabashedly prescriptive (partly because I am a teacher, though not of English). I agree with the comments that people judge others' intelligence (and therefore credibility) by cues, including grammar, and that "Me and my car" is an abominable phrase. I would never have it on my car. I bought the license plate frame, declaring myself to be a "Climate Balanced Driver", instead.
Reply
I agree with every previous comment ... and I have to admit that, had I known that was your slogan, I would have thought twice before buying my Terra Passes. I signed up because I thought it was a great idea - but "me and my car are doing something"? - it definitely detracts from your credibility. I don't think "My car and I are doing something for the environment" sounds stilted. And as much as I'll probably continue to spread the word on Terra Pass, I unfortunately won't be putting that bumper sticker on either of my cars.
Reply
While the descriptives may try to fluff off 'Me and my car' as merely a small quibble, please remember that all of their arguements could also be applied to a quadruple-negative, featuring the single word that will appear on the tombstone of civilization, "Ain't".
Of course, all this begs the question; Is my car, of it's own free will, assisting in 'doing something'? While marketers may be tempted to anthropomorphize, wouldn't a more palatable catch-phrase be "I'm using my car to improve the environment"?
Just the thoughts of a hard-core prescriptive...
Reply
We knew we were going to hit a nerve with this post, and boy were we right. People who care about this sort of thing care a lot. Truthfully, I don't have too much to add to the original post, because few of the criticisms really address the substantive points being made. People are welcome to hate our slogan, but I'd still urge people to read the cited articles, both of which are enlightening.
That said, I'll take another swing at this piñata. I happen to find this topic pretty fun.
I'm going to pause to repeat that statement before I offer up any more red meat to the dissatisfied prescriptivists among our readers: unlike global warming, this topic is supposed to be fun. Please join the discussion in a spirit of friendly and open debate.
To Skip and Rachel:
You are prescriptivists extraodinaire. If I am correctly interpreting your comments, you believe that the rules of grammar not only separate good English from bad English, they also tell you all you need to know of the credibility, intelligence, and personal ambition of the speaker.
This strikes me as a dangerously narrow attitude. As I mentioned in the original post, there is a reasonable defense of prescriptivism to be made on aesthetic or rhetorical grounds. It makes sense that Wallace (the prescriptivist) is a novelist and Pinker (the descriptivist) is a linguist. But I don't think your stance finds a champion in either.
Pinker has little patience for arguments about grammar and intelligence. He is almost gleeful in his use of examples of "bad" English spoken by highly intelligent and articulate people. His specific example for the "me and my car" formulation is former Rhodes Scholar and Leader of the Free World™ Bill Clinton. Regardless of political persuasion, most people concede that Clinton was both highly intelligent and a master of rhetoric.
For his part, Wallace delves quite deeply into the political dimensions of grammar, and he agrees that people use grammar and language as a proxy for credibility and intelligence. (I'm sure Pinker agrees with this point as well -- in general, I think the two articles are pretty easily reconciled.) Wallace also admits that this habit is "baldly elitist," but, hey, that's life in Wallace's view. One thing that becomes quite clear after reading his full argument, however, is that Wallace isn't attacking just ungrammatical English, but bad -- in the sense of ungainly or ugly -- English in general. For example, he also condemns academic jargon and business speak, not necessarily for being ungrammatical, but simply for being awful.
In other words, Wallace's argument in favor of prescriptivism is much broader and more subjective than an argument in favor of the pedantic application of specific rules of grammar (although clearly he feels that those rules are a good starting point). His article is not simply another "Eats, Shoots & Leaves"-style screed. So, for example, Rachel's use of all capital letters and multiple exclamation points are, in my view, a far greater aesthetic sin than "me and my car." To me, avoiding all-caps and multiple exclamation points is much closer to an inviolable prescriptivist rule for good writing than rules regarding the use of compound nouns. I have no idea whether Wallace would agree with my judgment on this matter, but given the tortured syntax of his own wonderful prose, I suspect he might.
This is a roundabout way of saying that, whichever camp you're in, an analysis of the quality of language, or a judgment of a speaker's intelligence or credibility, requires context, nuance, and judgment. To suggest that the slogan "me and my car are doing something good for the planet" by itself robs TerraPass or our customers of credibility is kinda silly.
To everyone who suggested that the current slogan is clumsy or ignorant:
Fair enough. I myself would put it squarely in the "not Shakespeare" category. It's doing its job.
More to the point, we didn't really pick the slogan. You did. That is, we let the market decide. We tested a bunch of different slogans on the Web site, and this one got the best response. Depending on your perspective, allowing the market to dictate your copy represents either a wonderful exercise in economic democracy or the triumph of vulgar capitalism. In either case, take comfort that as soon as another slogan tests better, we'll toss "me and my car" in the trash heap.
To Kate, who feel that TerraPass is an inherently a prescriptivist product:
Interesting point! We certainly never considered the prescriptivist vs. descriptivist angle on carbon emissions. Three comments:
To Diane:
Teachers are saints, and we unabashedly support prescriptivism in the classroom. As with so many things, we think this is one of those cases in which adults should choose freely (and wisely), and children should be given firm guidance. Thanks for doing what you do.
To everyone who is taking a stand by refusing to put a "Me and My Car" bumper sticker on your vehicle:
We don't make bumper stickers with that slogan. Never have. Nor t-shirts, license plate frames, mugs, or tea cozies. I'm not sure where that rumor got started, but I do hope you find our "Clean up after your car" slogan bumper-worthy, because that's what our bumper stickers say.
Finally, to all who wrote in:
Thank you for your energy and your passion on this and other topics. Feel free to write back, but please remember to keep it civil. We wrote this post in the spirit of fun, and we hope that is how it is received. Of course, given that we're firmly dug in on this issue, your best hope of changing our mind is to suggest a slogan we like even better.
Reply
Why don't you change this silly slogan...it's weird as it is...and it's not at all an active verb in the end since "My car" is an inanimate object and not a proper subject. "I'm doing something good for my car and the environment" sounds better to me.
Reply
Here's a slogan, "I'm doing something good for my car and the environment..." I don't know if this actually passed through.
Reply
Sorry to pile on here, but your argument that grammar should be fluid and dynamic runs up against a minor roadblock; just because something "should" be allowed does not mean that society condones it. Even the most liberal linguist would have to admit that while "Me and my car" *should* be acceptable, the fact that it isn't makes the slogan detrimental to your cause--sound intelligent so that others will feel comfortable with your product.
Reply
So if enough people believe 2 + 2 = 5, it becomes true?
Reply
Yep, in the case of grammar, absolutely. You may have noticed we no longer speak like Chaucer.
Reply
I would like to jump in on this. In your counter argument, you say that even the linguistic "greats" are prone to use grammatically incorrect statements, therefore it should be perfectly natural, and have no negative impact on a persons opinion of your initiative.
Your argument is great on paper, but no matter how many times you say it, I think you will always be repeating yourself whenever anyone looks at your slogan with grammar in mind. Is this something you want to have associated with your company; that you have bad grammar?
Also, even though your argument is sound, it is very difficult to accept it. At first I could not understand why, but now I think I do. The grammatical mistakes made by great linguists, that you are trying to hide behind, are much different than your own. They have already been appointed as an authority in their area, and have earned the right to be forgiven for their common, spoken, grammatical errors. I would say that if anyone saw their credentials, they would easily forgive them, or even find it amusing that they continuously use them. Further, I imagine if they were corrected, most if not all would indeed agree that it was bad grammar, and would then produce the propper statment to show they know this. I doubt they would produce an argument to the media, crowd, or person in question to make their mistake vanish into thin air. If they did choose to produce this arguement in their defence, it would be much easier to accept, but may even backfire and make them the ones who appear elitist.
With this slogan, in this case, that argument does not persuade. If you were presenting your slogan at an international convention of English literature, stood up at the front, and unveiled your banner, I would be surprised if the entire room didn't go quiet. I would then dare you to produce your Curriculum Vitae, present your argument, and declare thus that if anyone in the crowd would dare speak against your grammar, that they are elitist, inflexible, and do not understand the evolution of the English language.
I would bring a umbrella to protect yourself from the tomatoes and rotten cabbage.
I came across this post doing just a simple search for "descriptives". I know nothing about you, or your initiative other than what I have read in your article and in these comments. I find your slogan does make you seam simple or uneducated, and does make me think that your science would also be simple or uneducated. Also, claiming the same immunity as those who have spent their entire lives studying, and creating English masterpieces strikes me as annoying at best, and arrogant at worst.
Maybe after spending a whole career in English, would I grant that you are immune to some of the rules of grammar, however I do not think that ANY of those people you want to hide behind would ever release a professional product for another company, or even themselves with a slogan such as yours, unless they are making a grammatical point.
My first impressions are bad, elitist or not, and it's a fact of life that people will be expecting more from you if you want to be perceived as professional.
Jade.
Reply
It is with some sadness that I must report that the phrase in question no longer appears on our web site, although it remains memorialized in this blog post. I pretty much never get tired of this discussion, though, so once more into the fray.
Perhaps understandably, Jade, you've interpreted the argument above as suggesting that the "Me and my" formulation is acceptable because various intelligent people have said it. I can see how the quote I've pulled out gives this impression.
In actual fact, Pinker's argument has nothing to do with the authority of the speakers who have used this construction. The lead-in is just his cute way of tweaking all the language snobs out there who seem to think that nonstandard grammar is a sign of mental disability.
In fact, the rules of grammar have just about nothing to do with a speaker's authority. Language is about as democratic a medium as there is, and Pinker's argument rests on a highly technical assessment of this grammatical construction.
Jade, your example of us standing before an international convention of English literature is entirely unconvincing. It's pretty obvious that people speak differently in different contexts. Of course a speech before an academic audience is going to use different language than, say, dinner table conversation, or things shouted at a ballpark. Our marketing slogan is quite obviously meant to be colloquial.
The above comments make one thing pretty plain: this is a big pet peeve for a small minority of people. Oh, well.
Reply
I find it interesting that people might defend a prescriptivist stance on the ground that they are teachers. While I can understand a prescriptivist method for teaching young students, I believe that all teachers should be descriptivists at heart (do you like that prescriptive statement?). The heavy-handed grammar teacher has been scaring people away from a healthy relationship with the English language for more than a century now, while also (inadvertently?) promoting racist and classist prejudices.
It's much more responsible to teach our youth that language DOES change. And, just as importantly, we should teach them that the variations created by change are caught up in a complex web of prejudices, attitudes, and power relationships (as posted reactions to the TerraPass slogan will confirm), and that what is "correct" changes, depending on context.
Descriptivism allows us a democratic, realistic view of language. From a prescriptive standpoint, though, who's talking has mattered. What is considered "correct" English today was designated by a bunch of guys in London in the 17th and 18th centuries. And guess which of the many English dialects they decided was the correct one? Well, the one they spoke, of course! And this was the language of the elite, upper class. These men also decided that English should follow the rules of Latin, which doesn't make sense at all, since English is a Germanic language. This means that many of our grammatical rules were made up just a few hundred years ago, and no native English speaker would ever have spoken according to those rules before then--not even Chaucer. It also means that many of our grammatical rules defy logic, which is why so much schooling and drilling is necessary to teach youngsters how to speak their native language "correctly."
I love it that TerraPass has been dipping into this discussion, because it's one that transcends language. Attitudes toward language and its variations are some of the last places where overt racism and classism are allowed, and even encouraged, in our society. (My word processor is telling me that "classism" is not a word; does this mean that it doesn't exist?) When we teach our youth that some variations are "wrong"--and prescriptivism implies that incorrect language is wrong in a moral sense--we are only breeding more prejudice.
P.S. I am a teacher--an English teacher. And these are the kinds of issues we discuss at international conventions on the English language.
Reply
1) Breaking grammar rules can be fun. Clearly, that is what is intended with "Me and my car."
2) Like business suits and neck ties, compliance with grammar rules is a shorthand that lets us know if somebody deserves entrance into our elite club. Conform to our cultural standards, or we'll keep you serving us instead of letting you on our teams. That ain't workin for me no mo.
So lighten up a little, and you might have some fun. Enjoying the spectrum of American English can be delightful. But if you'd rather get upset over "bad" grammar, that's your choice.
Reply
how about this one "me and my bike are really doing something for the enviroment" or maybe even, "if you really believe in global warming, why are you still driving?"
Please don't run me over with your SUV with the Kerry Edwards bumper sticker on it when you see these signs on my backpack.
MNWalleye
Reply
MISSING THE REAL POINT.
Forgive me if someone covered this, but I read blog posts till bleary-eyed, and never saw someone touch the REAL AWFUL problem with this slogan:
My "CAR" is not doing anything for the environment except for polluting it. I am trying to offset that by using TerraPass but "me and my car" are only engaging in pollution, not activism.
Reply