At Friday 19-12-08 05:44 AM, Rick Yeager wrote: *********START OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT********* >Let's not try to be grammar police when we change the meaning of the post >and we seem to have a problem with apostrophe usage. >(snip) **********END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT*********** I, personally, don't have a problem with anyone wanting others to use proper grammar, punctuation, etc. Words mean things. Punctuation means things. "Apostrophe usage" means things. Proper pronoun usage means things. I'm just sick of the present trend of people saying things like "for him and I", etc. For heaven's sake, when the personal pronoun for "me/I" is preceded by "for", or any other such qualifier, the proper usage is "me", not "I". You don't say "for I" (as in "for him and I"), do you? Or with "I"? (As "with him and I".) Our American English grammar has fallen into the same old pit of ignorance that has been afflicting us for the last 10-15 years or so. (Notice that I say "ignorance", as opposed to "stupidity". Ignorance means "not knowing, unlearned, or uneducated", whereas "stupidity" simply means "not capable of learning".) Not from the List Admin, but just from me, a stickler for proper usage of English. It may not mean anything as far as genealogy research is concerned, but it just grates on my soul to see supposedly educated people butchering our language. If people can't do anything else, they could at least consult an English Grammar booklet and find out when the pronouns "I/Me", "He/Him", "She/Her", "They/Them", etc., should be used. There's no excuse for ignorance. George