Fun Friday: #BookadayUK No. 13

It's Friday the 13th, friends! And what better day to laugh at the darkness than today? I'm participating in the superfun #bookadayUK hashtag event only on Fridays because, well, I have other things to do. Frankly.

But here it is--Friday--so let the hilarity begin!

Oh ... and before you jump all over me about the scandal known as bookaday-gate, read the note at the end of this post. I'm just trying to fill my blog here, people. Honest.

BOOK A DAY No. 13: Books That Made Me Laugh

I could go on and on about Tim Federle and his books Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate! But you can read about them in the links I just snuck into the last sentence. They are books to make you snort your milk out your nose, but then, so are these:

King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography
by Chris Crutcher
Greenwillow Books, 2004
YA/adult memoir

Told in the spirit of A Christmas Story, Crutcher's memories of boyhood in the 1950s are hilariously told in this short memoir. Read my Goodreads review here for more, then go buy this. Chris is an amazing writer whose YA titles include the fantastic novel Deadline (Greenwillow, 2007) and Period 8 (Greenwillow, 2013), among many others.

The Code of the Woosters
by P.G. Wodehouse
W.W. Norton, 2011 (originally pubbed in 1938)
adult fiction

When I'm down, or sick, or just want to laugh until my stomach begs me to stop, I reach for Wodehouse. He's been lauded as the funniest writer in history, and while I love Mark Twain and so many others, I have to concur. Hapless Bertie Wooster, who has too much money and time on his hands, would be in desperate straits were it not for his faithful valet (a "gentleman's gentleman"), Jeeves. Bertie is happily forever lost in 1920s Britain, before the war, when the most anyone had to worry about was a missing cow-creamer. This is Jeeves & Wooster at their hilarious best.



Note: Borough Press, which sponsors this fun idea, lately realized that there was already a #bookaday hashtag out there. So ... sorry for the confusion. Borough Press has changed their hashtag to #bookadayUK. The original Book a Day campaign is going strong! It's an annual summertime challenge hosted by The Nerdy Book Club here. So go do that. I would, but I have other things to do too. Frankly.

Next Friday: The book that wears my favorite cover. Check out more #bookadayuk fun here, on Twitter.

Pet Peeve: Between You and I

There are some peeves, gentle readers, that seem pickier than others. No one cares, you might say, about anymore vs. any more, nor does anyone give a rat's posterior about hyphens. (I do, and you should too, but I take your point.) On this particular peeve, however, I yield no ground, because this is just wrong. It's not stylistic, there's no poetic license, it's not a maybe-yes, maybe-no kind of rule.

It's just a rule. And when you violate it, you're wrong.

Sorry to be blunt. Here's the scoop:

It was drilled into our preteen heads from Day One (or Day One of grade school) that when speaking of oneself and another person, one must use I, not me, as in:

Jeeves and I went on a fishing trip.
Jeeves and I had tea at four o'clock. (Or rather, I had tea, which Jeeves served.)

and so on. Only the laughably ungrammatical among us would say:

Jeeves and me hopped a train to Aunt Dahlia's house.

But here's the catch--the footnote to the main memo, you might say--that so many of us have overlooked. This rule only applies when the I in question is the subject of the sentence. You'd never say:

Me hopped a train to Aunt Dahlia's house.

So, no matter how many folks hop that train, I is always I, and never me:

Barmy, Bingo, Stinker, Jeeves, and I hopped a train to Aunt Dahlia's house.

But again I say: This rule only applies when the I in question is the subject of the sentence. Would you ever say:

Aunt Dahlia has been spreading vicious rumors about I.

Of course not. Nor would you say:

Aunt Dahlia had a particularly onerous problem for I to solve.

Instead, you'd say:

Aunt Dahlia has been spreading vicious rumors about me.
Aunt Dahlia had a particularly onerous problem for me to solve.

That being understood, it doesn't matter how many people Auntie D has been spreading rumors about, nor how many heads she needs to solve her problem. Me is always me.

Aunt Dahlia had a particularly onerous problem for Jeeves and me to solve.
Aunt Dahlia has been spreading vicious rumors about Jeeves, Barmy, Bingo, Stinker, and me.

Aha! you say. But it's still between you and I, isn't it?

No, it isn't. Between, gentle readers, is a preposition, like about, upon, of, beneath, etc. Prepositions take object pronouns. If you don't know what those are, don't fret. Take my word for it: Me is one of them. (Here's a list of common English prepositions, if you're interested.)

"That task is beneath me, Aunt Dahlia," said Bertie. (Beneath I? Never!)

And so:

"That task is beneath Jeeves and me, Aunt Dahlia," said Bertie. 

And yes, now we come to it:

"Dash it, Jeeves, but between you and me, I think Aunt Dahlia has too much time on her hands," said Bertie. 

And so it is with all prepositional phrases:

• between you and me
• for you and me
• about you and me
• of you and me

and so on.

Here's the takeaway, and a foolproof rule: When wondering if you should use I or me, ask yourself what you would use if the sentence didn't involve a lot of other people, and go with that.

Here's a picture of Jeeves and me out on our pleasure cruise.
Here's a picture of me out on my pleasure cruise.
"She wasn't talking about you and me, sir," said Jeeves.
"She wasn't talking about me, sir," said Jeeves.
That isn't something you and I would do, is it?
That isn't something I would do, is it? 

 I feel so much better having that peeve off my chest. Time to ring Jeeves to bring something bracing, I should think.