Tag Archives: Sentence (linguistics)

7th (Self Help) Day of Xmas – Your Own Advice

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This one is longer and hopefully a bit more thought-provoking.  I think about it from time to time and even just typing little notes on my phone and saving them for later seems to work for me.

Advice From Yourself

For this exercise, you are going to need a piece of paper, a pen, and some free time to think. You will need the free time first, I suggest you noodle on it while you are doing your daily thirty minutes of cardio. (You are doing thirty minutes of cardio every day, aren’t you? I’m not interested in your excuses.) Ask yourself this question:

If you could use a time machine just once to travel back and tell yourself one sentence, what age would you travel back to and what would you say?

If we had a month to go back in time and be the guidance counselors to our younger versions, I would let you write paragraphs with bullet points. I would let you outline a schedule of future events and how you should handle them. You only have a couple minutes to give yourself one sentence of advice and it should be in the form of advice. I am the first to admit that if I could, I would go back to 1985 and whisper in my ear to buy Microsoft stock when it goes public, but that really isn’t what this exercise is about.

Mine would be 14 years old and I would say “Hi, I’m you in the future, I came back to tell you that there is an amazing life for you with limitless possibilities out there, you just need to be fearless and know that you can do absolutely anything you put your mind to.”

Now that you have had time to think about it and come up with one sentence that you would want to tell the younger you, write it down on a piece of paper. I know one sentence is hard no one is going to make you diagram it if it turns out to be a bit of a run on, but try to keep it to one sentence.

You are all ready to go back in time, you have your one sentence script, you know exactly what you want to tell yourself. Go to your bathroom mirror. Read the sentence.

You can’t go back in time, but it is never too late. Life has not passed you by, it may be passing you by, it it is never too late. If you went back in time and whispered to yourself to become a teen pop star, that may not have been the best use of your one trip in a time machine, but you can still adapt it to your life today. Take singing lessons, surround yourself with kids, take hip hop dance lessons. It is never too late for hip hop dance lessons.

My guess is that most of you gave yourself advice similar to mine, to stand up, stand out, not be afraid of going after your dreams, grasp for the brass ring, to love hard and fearlessly, and to wring every ounce of juice out of life.

Tape that piece of paper to your bathroom mirror, read it every morning and honor that younger you by making up for lost time. You can’t go back in time, but it’s never too late.

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Advice From Yourself

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Advice From Yourself

For this exercise, you are going to need a piece of paper, a pen, and some free time to think. You will need the free time first, I suggest you noodle on it while you are doing your daily thirty minutes of cardio. (You are doing thirty minutes of cardio every day, aren’t you? I’m not interested in your excuses.) Ask yourself this question:

If you could use a time machine just once to travel back and tell yourself one sentence, what age would you travel back to and what would you say?

If we had a month to go back in time and be the guidance counselors to our younger versions, I would let you write paragraphs with bullet points. I would let you outline a schedule of future events and how you should handle them. You only have a couple minutes to give yourself one sentence of advice and it should be in the form of advice. I am the first to admit that if I could, I would go back to 1985 and whisper in my ear to buy Microsoft stock when it goes public, but that really isn’t what this exercise is about.

Mine would be 14 years old and I would say “Hi, I’m you in the future, I came back to tell you that there is an amazing life for you with limitless possibilities out there, you just need to be fearless and know that you can do absolutely anything you put your mind to.”

Now that you have had time to think about it and come up with one sentence that you would want to tell the younger you, write it down on a piece of paper. I know one sentence is hard no one is going to make you diagram it if it turns out to be a bit of a run on, but try to keep it to one sentence.

You are all ready to go back in time, you have your one sentence script, you know exactly what you want to tell yourself. Go to your bathroom mirror. Read the sentence.

You can’t go back in time, but it is never too late. Life has not passed you by, it may be passing you by, it it is never too late. If you went back in time and whispered to yourself to become a teen pop star, that may not have been the best use of your one trip in a time machine, but you can still adapt it to your life today. Take singing lessons, surround yourself with kids, take hip hop dance lessons. It is never too late for hip hop dance lessons.

My guess is that most of you gave yourself advice similar to mine, to stand up, stand out, not be afraid of going after your dreams, grasp for the brass ring, to love hard and fearlessly, and to wring every ounce of juice out of life.

Tape that piece of paper to your bathroom mirror, read it every morning and honor that younger you by making up for lost time. You can’t go back in time, but it’s never too late.

I vs Me – Self Help

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For whatever reason, this is a pet peeve of mine, the incorrect usage of I and ME.  I think it is because it feels so obviously clunky to me when the wrong one is used.  I am not sure how it started, but I am guessing that people just default to using “I” because somewhere down the line, they heard that it was proper to always refer to themselves that way.  It is, sometimes, but it isn’t when you are adding captions to your photographs on Facebook or providing ownership of something with one or more people.

When relating a story, do you wonder whether to say, “Hector and I went to the movies,” or “Hector and me went… .” Here, you would say, “Hector and I went to the movies,” but “Hector and I” is not always correct. “The race was won by Hector and I” is just as ungrammatical as “Hector and me won the race.” It’s easy to choose correctly if you remember a few simple steps.

1. Remember the difference in case between the pronouns. Both I and me are pronouns that we use to refer to ourselves, but I is nominative, suitable for use as the subject of a sentence or clause, and me is accusative, suitable for use as the object of a verb.

2. Think like a native. Most native speakers rarely make case errors with these pronouns, except when they are paired with other nouns as part of a compound subject or object. (Unfortunately, problems with pronoun case are more common today than twenty years ago.) Although almost no one would say, “Harry took I in his car,” one often hears sentences such as “Harry took Jordan and I in his car.” If you’re trying to determine which pronoun to use in a sentence with a compound subject, try the sentence using only the pronoun part of the subject. Whichever pronoun, I or me, sounds right alone is the one to use in the compound subject.

3. Avoid “Bizarro-speak.” In Superman comics, there’s an imperfect version of Superman called Bizarro, and he does everything in a backward sort of way. He says, “Goodbye” when he means, “Hello,” and he says things such as “Me am so sad to see you” (meaning “I’m glad to see you”). Bizarro, and a little bit of conceit, can help you learn proper pronoun use: If you change the subject around to a different spot in the sentence, and make it about you and only you, you can easily spot the places where the wrong usage of “I” and “me” will make you sound like Bizarro.

Examples:

Harry and me went to the store. (Change it around so that Harry’s out of the picture and it’s just about you – you would never say, “Me went to the store.”)

“Who’s at the door?” You answer, “It’s me.” (No, no, no! You would really properly say, “It is I.” Consider a related sentence: “That writer is me.” Try reversing the word order, and you end up with “Me am that writer.” You use nominative pronouns such as “I” after forms of “to be” (i.e. am, are, is, was, were, be, being, and been). The “to be” functions as an equal sign, so the nouns and pronouns on both sides of the “equal sign” are nominative.

The cake was made by Justin and I. (Would you ever say, “The cake was made by I”?)

4. Use pronouns correctly in comparisons to prevent ambiguity. Write out the full comparison to decide which pronoun to use.

She likes Winifred more than I do. (This can be shortened to “She likes Winifred more than I,” but the former may sound more natural.)

She likes Winifred more than she likes me. (This can be shortened to “She likes Winifred more than me.”)

Tips:

  • Here’s a good tip; just remember ‘me’ never did anything.
  • Place I and me after the other nouns or pronouns.
    • “Elliot, Amanda, and I are friends” (not “I, Elliot, and Amanda are friends”)
    • “The teacher saw him and me” (not “The teacher saw me and him”)
  • In informal situations, consider using “yours truly” if you are unsure or the proper form sounds stuffy. It can replace I, me, or myself.
    • “He’s better at it than yours truly.”
    • “Amanda and yours truly did that.”
    • “It’s yours truly, ma; I got a little message for ya” (from Nelly‘s “My Place“)
    • “I can take care of yours truly” (from Merriam-Webster)
  • Remember to figure out proper usage before you begin to speak; consider saying the sentence desired silently to yourself to determine if you are using the proper word.
  • Now try it yourself.
    • Is this correct?: “You and me are going to the movies later.”
      Answer: No. The correct subject would be “You and I.” (Take the other pronoun out of the sentence and say it again: “I [not me] am going to the movies later.”)
    • Is this correct?: “My mom is taking Javier and I to the mall.”
      Answer: No. The correct object of the verb “taking” is “Javier and me.” (Take Javier out of the equation and try it again: “My mom is taking me [not I] to the mall.”)
    • Is this correct?: “She is better at art than me”
      Answer: No. The correct pronoun would be “I.” (Write the comparison out in full: “She is better at art than I am [not me].”)
  • Practice in your head before you say it until it becomes automatic.
Related articles

Advice From Yourself

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Advice From Yourself

For this exercise, you are going to need a piece of paper, a pen, and some free time to think. You will need the free time first, I suggest you noodle on it while you are doing your daily thirty minutes of cardio. (You are doing thirty minutes of cardio every day, aren’t you? I’m not interested in your excuses.) Ask yourself this question:

If you could use a time machine just once to travel back and tell yourself one sentence, what age would you travel back to and what would you say?

If we had a month to go back in time and be the guidance counselors to our younger versions, I would let you write paragraphs with bullet points. I would let you outline a schedule of future events and how you should handle them. You only have a couple minutes to give yourself one sentence of advice and it should be in the form of advice. I am the first to admit that if I could, I would go back to 1985 and whisper in my ear to buy Microsoft stock when it goes public, but that really isn’t what this exercise is about.

Mine would be 14 years old and I would say “Hi, I’m you in the future, I came back to tell you that there is an amazing life for you with limitless possibilities out there, you just need to be fearless and know that you can do absolutely anything you put your mind to.”

Now that you have had time to think about it and come up with one sentence that you would want to tell the younger you, write it down on a piece of paper. I know one sentence is hard no one is going to make you diagram it if it turns out to be a bit of a run on, but try to keep it to one sentence.

You are all ready to go back in time, you have your one sentence script, you know exactly what you want to tell yourself. Go to your bathroom mirror. Read the sentence.

You can’t go back in time, but it is never too late. Life has not passed you by, it may be passing you by, it it is never too late. If you went back in time and whispered to yourself to become a teen pop star, that may not have been the best use of your one trip in a time machine, but you can still adapt it to your life today. Take singing lessons, surround yourself with kids, take hip hop dance lessons. It is never too late for hip hop dance lessons.

My guess is that most of you gave yourself advice similar to mine, to stand up, stand out, not be afraid of going after your dreams, grasp for the brass ring, to love hard and fearlessly, and to wring every ounce of juice out of life.

Tape that piece of paper to your bathroom mirror, read it every morning and honor that younger you by making up for lost time. You can’t go back in time, but it’s never too late.