Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
It stems from failing to teach grammar at school. And maths.

I went to an outstanding school and we were never tasught much about grammar, punctuation etc. My mum taught me all that.

The you and I thing isnt difficult to grasp. You just use the one you would use if the other person wasn't there. Ie He gave it to me/he gave it to Dave and me.

I spend much of my day correcting reports written by my team. Some of them are appalling.
I know. I had to explain the passive voice to someone the other day. I ended up explaining it as I would to a child by saying that, if they appended the phrase 'by monkeys' to the end of the sentence and it still made sense, it was the passive voice and if they added it and it didn't make sense, it was in the active voice. There was no point talking about subjects and objects because they just don't understand the terms and switch off when you use them.

They now all think I'm some sort of pedantic old grammar Nazi of course (and they may not be entirely wrong) but, as I pointed out to one the other day, they work with the written word and it is actually my job to make sure they know how to use it correctly.