Amy: language and bed

[pne]

I recently asked UK English speakers what to call the thing I had previously called a "stroller", since I wanted to use a UK English word.

I was a little disappointed that the majority answer was not what I had been expecting :) Apparently, "pushchair" is the most popular word for both types of stroller shown in the poll, though "buggy" (what I was hoping I could validly use) showed up a little as well.

I decided to settle on "buggy" for (1) and (3) and "pushchair" for the simpler version in (2) (aka "umbrella stroller" in US-ese). Let's see how Amy copes with my changing usage.

---

One of Amy's phrases is "Ich auch!".

I'm not sure what to teach her for that in English. The problem is that what seems most natural is "Me, too!", but the prescriptivist side of me isn't sure whether to allow that. (Your father has taught you well.)

On the one hand, English isn't Latin -- nor even German. But I'm still worried that what may be the most natural respone will get her looked down at by some. (Even if "I, too!" sounds horribly stilted and contrived to me.)

You can't win.

(What do you think? "Me too"? "I too"? "So do I"? Something else entirely? "I reject your prescriptivist reality and substitute my own"? FWIW, context varies, but something like "I'm going into the living room to jump on the trampoline! -- Ich auch!" can probably be taken as typical.)

---

Amy has a new, higher loft bed now -- one that she needs to climb up a ladder to get into.

She accepted it immediately, and even asked for her old bed to be taken out of her room so that the new one could be in the same place.

Stella wanted something over it, a kind of net or something, to stop Amy from falling out, especially when playing around on the bed with other children.

We bought a kind of tunnel (some cloth with flexible rods, similar to a tend, which form a half-cylinder over the bed) which belongs on an IKEA bed and attached it to hers. That was last evening.

Amy liked her "cave" (as she's taken to calling it) a lot -- but refused to sleep under it. So we took it down again.

We thought that might be because it was put up not long before bedtime and she hadn't adjusted to it, and perhaps she would like it more later on.

This morning, she woke up and asked where her cave was. Stella put it up again after church, and Amy liked it again. She also said she'd stay there for her nap. (Not sure whether she ended up sleeping; Stella and I did, though.)

Then in the evening, she climbed up the ladder after family prayer and hugs all around, and we thought everything was fine. But no, ten minutes later she was calling for Mummy and asking to sleep on the ground rather than under her cave.

She couldn't express what was wrong or why she didn't like the cave, though. I lay down on her bed next to her and sang to her for a while. When I had had enough, I asked her whether she would sleep by herself now in her cave. She said she would, but didn't seem very happy about it.

When Stella looked half an hour later, Amy was asleep -- but she was lying sideways in her bed, by the ladder, just outside the canopy. So maybe she just really doesn't like it when she sleeps, though I'm not sure why.

I wonder how this story will continue.

Comments

[jpallan.livejournal.com]

"So am I" "So shall I" "So will I" are all valid usage, but I'd say the most common is, "Me, too!"

Of course, I speak American English, so I'm not quite as good as other possibilities.

[isabeau.livejournal.com]

Re "Me, too" -- which is what I would say both instinctively and after thinking about it -- I actually think it could be justified as correct.

If you think about the "Me, too" response (say, to "I am going into the living room") as -- *Me [to-be going into the living room] too -- then it's awkward. Kind of like "Me and Jess are going to the mall now", which is in common usage but makes me /twitch/.

But I don't think it's shorthand for that -- I think it's shorthand for the response "[As for] Me, [I am going into the living room] too". Which can be used in long form -- "I'm going to have chocolate ice cream." "Me, I'm going to have vanilla instead." -- and could also be linked to constructions like "John, you go stand over there" where the subject is stated twice.

...I've lost my ability to do completely believable linguistictechnobabble, but really, I think "Me too" is perfectly fine :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure whether "Me, too!" is necessarily short for anything (i.e. "me" need not be in objective case, object of a verb, nor in prepositional case, object of a preposition, but merely be the default stand-alone form).

I don't have proper words for this, though, since what little I've formally studied of English has been in Latin-derived traditional grammar terms. I'm just vaguely recalling something I read on Language Log a fair bit ago.

[pne.livejournal.com]

...I've lost my ability to do completely believable linguistictechnobabble, but really, I think "Me too" is perfectly fine :)

Oh, and thanks!

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

I second the "me, too" -- actually, an article I read comparing German and English case usage mentioned that unlike in German ("Ich" is nominative, correct?), the objective "me" seems the "default" in English. I believe it was this one:
Schütze, C. & Wexler, K. (1996). Subject case licensing and English root infinitives. In Stringfellow, A., Cahana-Amitay, D., Hughes, E. and Zukowski, A. (eds) Proceedings of the 20th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press, Somerville Mass.

[pne.livejournal.com]

("Ich" is nominative, correct?)

Correct.

The accusative version, "Mich auch!", would only be possible in an explicit direct-object situation. For example, "John saw me yesterday! - Mich auch!" (i.e., he saw not just the first speaker, but me, too).

the objective "me" seems the "default" in English

*nods* That's what I read somewhere, too.

[lnbw.livejournal.com]

This sort of reminds me of when I taught English part-time in Japan. One of my students had a very difficult time saying "gonna," as in "I'm gonna go to the store," and was incredulous when I told her that really, most Americans say it more like "I'muna." "I'muna go to the store now!" In really informal contexts, I and my friends will even say "I'mma go to the store now." Now, we would probably never write it that way, but phonetically (okay, phonemically) it's what we say. My student, though, insisted on saying, "I am going to go to the store," which sounded stiff and unnatural to me.

Which is all basically justification for saying you should teach her "Me too." Not only can I not think of a context (as a native American English speaker) in which "I, too" would sound more natural, I suspect in just about every instance she'd be seen as talking oddly if she used "I, too."

[pne.livejournal.com]

Now, we would probably never write it that way

Indeed. Seeing that in writing is practically the mark of a second-language learner, and it looks very odd to me. (One person whom I pointed this out to refused to believe me and insisted that her written usage was fine, which I thought odd, too.)

It's good to teach that sort of thing to people, so that they will sound natural, but they also need to know that written English is not just what people say, written down, but is a slightly different, but closely related, language.

Which is all basically justification for saying you should teach her "Me too."

Thanks!

[karen2205]

"I too" sounds 'wrong' ie. not just formal, but grammatically incorrect, and "me too" sounds 'right' to me, but I don't know why that is.

In a longer phrase ie. "I want some too" it works, in a way it just doesn't as a two word phrase.

So I'd say teach her "Me too" but also (as she gets older) that it's relatively informal and sometimes it's better to say "Yes, I'd like some tea as well, please" or equivalent phrase.

[nyssa.livejournal.com]

"Me, too", while not technically correct, is generally accepted in that circumstance. At least, I've never heard anything else.

[jc.livejournal.com]

I wonder how this story will continue.

Me, too!

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

But I'm still worried that what may be the most natural respone will get her looked down at by some. (Even if "I, too!" sounds horribly stilted and contrived to me.)

I don't think you will ever have that problem with Me, too, as I've heard people of all different nationalities use it, and from all different walks of life. If someone looks down on it, then there's something wrong with them, I would think. It's also absolutely normal in Australian English, FWIW.

[kait-the-great.livejournal.com]

"Me, too" is what seemed to fit best in the context I first read "Ich auch" in in German class. It is still the best usage translation to me.

I never realized that it's probably gramatically incorrect ("I'm going swimming" "Me going swimming too!") That'll bug me from now on! I'll be tempted to say "I also" instead.

[tungol.livejournal.com]

I support "me too". (Of course, I'm not prescriptivist.)

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

"Me too" is fine! People rarely speak (or even write) gramatically correctly all the time and doiing so would be far more likely to get you laughed at than than using common phrases that may not be 100% gramatically correct! Life is not an English literacy exam:)

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

People rarely speak (or even write) gramatically correctly all the time

*twitch*

As a descriptivist, that's what makes me twitch :P

I restrain the rant ;)

[pthalo]

I also support "me too". Saying "I also" or "as do I" in a deliberate attempt to avoid "me too" actually sounds like foreigner English to me, especially someone who has spent more time learning grammatical rules and less time learning conversational English.

[fridoline.livejournal.com]

I just use buggy for everything that is not a pram, because somehow I do not like the word pushchair for this kind of baby carrier.

Another option for securing the loft bed is something I have seen in a parents community. They had used nets bought a boat supplier and attached them between ceiling and bed and then decorated them with flowers or fishes. Another option is a net made to keep cats inside a balcony, available at pet suppliers, but those may not be as strong as boat nets.

pushchair

[pne.livejournal.com]

I just use buggy for everything that is not a pram, because somehow I do not like the word pushchair for this kind of baby carrier.

The word seems rather odd to me, too. I think I'll try it out anyway.

(I was curious what you would call it, though; I probably asked you before, but forgot your answer.)