Grammar Moses: Song titles to make you grimace

For the past two months, I've been channeling my inner disc jockey by highlighting a daily "Song To Make You Smile" on the back page of Daily Herald and linking to a video of it on our website.

Music is the therapy that soothes my troubled spirit these days. That and peanut M&M's, of course.

Judging by the roughly 300 requests I've gotten from readers, this does the trick for you, too.

So, why bring this up in a grammar column?

Because if you knew who was behind the song selections, you might have said to yourself on May 8, "Moses, have you lost your marbles?"

The song of the day was "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

Four days later, it was "Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard," by Paul Simon.

I admit to having grit my teeth as I put them on the list, but, hey, it's all about the music, and music has never been a slave to good grammar.

And that brings me to Casey Smith.

"It's only taken me weeks of quarantine to come up with a question you've probably answered a million times by now. Without regret, here I go," he wrote in an email to me. "If you were to say 'me and my friend' or 'my friend and me' around a buddy of mine, he will promptly interject with 'my friend and I' while at the same time pushing the glasses from the tip to the bridge of his nose. Is 'my friend and I' always right? I have to think there can be an exception!"

Casey, I've always found it easy to just take your friend out of the equation. Please do not interpret that as a solicitation for murder.

Would you say, "Me is going to the movies"?

I would hope not. I think you can be prosecuted for saying that.

Many people are confused by this, and I believe this explains the ascendancy of "myself," a word so horribly misused by people who think it is a synonym for "I" and "me" that I try to avoid using it altogether.

Use "I" when you are the subject of the sentence and "me" when you're the object.

You as the subject: "My friend and I went to the movies."

You as the object: "The theater owner gave my friend and me free tickets to the show."

If you take your friend out of the equation in both cases, it should make your ears bleed to say it incorrectly.

Impacted

Just as some people throw around "myself" when they don't understand whether to use "I" or "me," I believe "impact" is used by those who can't remember whether to use "affect" and "effect." (By the way, "affect" is a verb and "effect" is a noun most of the time, unless it's used as a synonym for "create," as in to effect change.)

Reader John Rix wrote to me with just that sentiment. Thanks for the inspiration, John.

I'm not a fan of "impact" as a noun, because it's overly general. It's neither good nor bad. Your favorite teacher had an impact on you, but so did your bully. But the type of impact each had is likely very different.

Why waste your breath or your keystrokes on words that say nothing?

Like many people who do more than just Google answers to life's questions, I despise "impact" as a verb. It's more than the blandness and noncommittal nature of the word; it's the jargony, euphemistic feel it carries.

It's the stuff of business presentations.

Many of you will probably be shocked to learn that the verb "impact" preceded the noun by about two centuries. I know, it gave me the vapors when I learned it, too.

But I would wager that most people who use "impact" as a verb today are unfamiliar with that. Let's hope this doesn't embolden them.

I hope that this column has impacted you.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.