Personal pronouns

Once I asked an inmate his name he said he was Jesus. So I asked if they just called him that? Or was he ..? And he replied gravely “I am He.”

Funnily enough I do believe this is strictly correct formal English grammar but nobody speaks like this.

There are intrinsic problems with the use of the nominative case of personal pronouns. As a solution we tend to rather just avoid the issue in both written and spoken language and make it up using different words and sentence structures.

I believe that according to official rules phrases like, he is I, they are we, you were she, it is I and many others like he was I, I am she, and it is I, are grammatically correct and make perfect sense.

Reality, theory, and practice has to be reconciled. Let us attempt to clear things up with a bit of theory.

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Words such as I, you, we, it, he and she are called personal pronouns and these here given in the nominative case, the case depends on the relation to the verb. A noun could be a subject, an indirect or direct object or might indicate possession.

A personal pronoun stands in the place of a noun and also each in one of these different cases, some more are I, me, her, she, we, they, you, our, we etc.

Nouns and pronouns are in four cases depending on their role in a sentence relating to the action, that is the verb, the cases are nominative, genitive dative and accusative.

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The case of genitive would indicate possession as in her book, my roses, the book's story. In the genitive there are also as pronouns my, your, his, hers, our, its.

Accusative is the direct object, kick a ball, score a try, kiss a frog. It is an object when acted on directly by the verb. An indirect object would be dative such as in, sing the girl a song, take a chance on me, give your love a yellow rose.

Nominative in fact states existence, or then naming the subject of the sentence. As far as the action goes a subject is always in the nominative or describing attributes and it stands neutral to the verb some are he, I, we, you, it, she.

Now your problem is the nominative personal pronouns such as he/him , he/he , she/he , us/you , she/we , I/she and so on and then especially the issue of I/me and I/I.

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I admit I too am in some confusion about all of this. Apparently we try to avoid the dilemma with using other words around it with clever sentence constructs and carefully choosing words. In everyday English usage already since long ago in informal use it is standard and I suggest we make a formal adaptation. Every language is constantly changing developing and evolving and this should be admitted accepted and formalised instead of denied head in the sand ostrich style.

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The “correct” nominative case personal pronouns rules of grammar applied strictly is very uncomfortable and usually sounds not a bit odd. These days “me” for example is becoming more acceptable. The former strict usage of “I” one sees in the movies and as inappropriate and pretentious and not at all consistent.

The formal is actually the older and more academic language, or perhaps sometimes in being polite. In ordinary speech both written and spoken, the pronoun me is already acceptable. However still it is a dilemma and I propose the simple solution.

I suggest such a word could have alternate forms in the nominative, the formal, and then the more casual as spoken, both to be allowed. Both as acceptable and grammatically correct. There are already instances of repetition, the same word is used in different cases like her, you or him.

In this way we could formalise it in grammar indeed it would be readily accepted since it is already widely in use. By the way my little essay is definitely not meant as an example of good grammar!