In which having German as a first language helps Amy speak prescriptively correct English

[pne]

Amy and I were just playing with Playmobil figures and I sat one of them at a table with a tin of sausages. I had him ask, "Who wants to eat sausages with me?"

And Amy holds another figure up and says, "I!"

That amused me so much that I had to write a journal entry about it.

(I think your average native English speaker would be more likely to have said, "Me!".)

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I would never say "I" in such a context unless it were followed by "do".

[pne.livejournal.com]

Oh, quite -- arguably, saying "I" in such a context is even incorrect, in the sense that it's something few people would say spontaneously except through deliberately affecting prescriptivist grammar. That is, it's not the form that evolved naturally (or something like that).

[brad.livejournal.com]

:)

[kait-the-great.livejournal.com]

Eeeee that's adorable and correct!!

[leighbug]

Me!

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

Cute :)

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

I have always found it quite interesting that despite the fact that the nominative is almost exclusively the default or unmarked case in nominative-accusative languages, the default case for English pronouns seems to be the accusative.

[pne.livejournal.com]

True.

Even in subject position when there is a compound(?) subject, as in "Him and me went to the market yesterday".

I wonder how that came about.

(On the other hand, English is only barely nominative-accusative: only in pronouns is the distinction made.)

[eva]

Ich auch!

There are Playmobil sausages? I'm jealous! There weren't any when I was small (although I had the working train and trains tation and the pirate ship and loads of other stuff, so I probably shouldn't complain...)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Well, tiny little jars less than a centimetre tall, with a sticky label on the outside showing that they jars contain sausages.

Amy got a "shopping" expansion a little while back with a shopper, a shopping trolley (I think) and various items of food, including four tins of sardines (which Amy apparently likes to put between her toes), the jars of sausages, cartons of orange juice and milk (and crates for those cartons), tubes of toothpaste and laundry detergent and sunscreen, and other things. All very tiny -- Playmobil scale.

(Gah. I wish English had some of German's Abtönpartikel. I wanted to say "eben im Playmobil-Format" or "Playmobil-Format halt" but can't think of a concise way to express that in English.)

[eva]

four tins of sardines (which Amy apparently likes to put between her toes)

Oh, that's adorable!

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Would "(just) typical Playmbol scale" have worked?

(I don't know a real word for "eben" either but expressing it with "typical" is the first thing that came to my mind for whatever reason and I'm just curious what you think.)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Would "(just) typical Playmbol scale" have worked?

It doesn't have the same emotional result, to my mind.

Though since I posted my previous comment to lied_ohne_worte, I think that "you know, Playmobil scale" would have been closer.

Adding "typical" to that might be a tad better even, but it's not enough by itself to convey what I wanted to express.