One of the great things about learning English  as a native speaker is that you don't have to worry too much about things like objective and subjective forms; you pick up the correct forms to use completely naturally, without even thinking about how you're using them. It's only when you start to learn foreign languages that you have to worry about the nuts-and-bolts grammar that makes a language what it is.

One of the rubbish things about being a native English-speaker, therefore, is that it's actually quite difficult to get a good grounding in why we say the things we do. For example: when to use I and when to use me.

I is a subjective form (I'm following him - I'm doing the action in this sentence, so I'm the subject)

Me is an objective form (He's following me - He's doing the action in this sentence, so I'm the object)

Grammatically,  it's not possible to have an objective form of the verb to be. This means the answer to Who's there? should always be It is I. But would we really say that nowadays? Wouldn't it just sound archaic and pedantic? Wouldn't we, instead, say It's me, even though it's wrong?

God, I'd love it if we did, in fact, say IT IS I! in daily life. Sigh. Mind you, I'm still upset that we don't say "Zounds" any longer, so am perhaps not the best person to give advice in this matter.

English is always evolving and doesn't stand still. What's unacceptable for one generation is completely natural for another. I still shudder when I hear people use hopefully to mean I hope that will be the case, but understand that the usage has reached a momentum that can't be stopped. Bah!

A couple of times when it's obligatory, even now, to use I and not me:

Following as and than when writing: Emma is faster than I (although you'd say Emma is faster than me).

Following as and than and then continuing the sentence: Emma is faster than I am and has more hair (subjective form obligatory for both written and spoken forms).

Have me explained this well enough?

Okay, first thing: this entry isn’t going to tell you everything about commas. We’d be here for a week if I tried to do that.

Instead, today I’m going to be talking about how to use commas when you start a sentence with a subordinate clause.

A subobadiba-what?

Calm down, take a deep breath. Ready? Let’s consider it from the beginning. Look at the following sentence:

When you’re in town, drop me a line.

The most important thing I’m saying there is "drop me a line". So that’s the main clause.

The "when you’re in town" bit qualifies the main clause and is called a subordinate clause. So we're agreed that the above sentence makes sense, yes?

Now tell me if the following sentence is understandable:

When you’re in town drop me a line.

It does, doesn’t it? No chance of any misunderstanding, is there? In other words, it’s not always necessary to use a comma if you start a sentence with a subordinate clause.

~~:

What about when you start a sentence with a subordinate clause which ends in a verb?

Ah, that’s different. That can lead to misunderstanding. Have a look at the following:

After she finished writing, the website was updated.

That makes perfect sense. The main clause is "the website was updated" and the subordinate clause is "After she finished writing". No confusion there.

What about this, then?

After she finished writing the website was updated.

A bit tricky, isn’t it? It requires you to read the sentence back to yourself again, because you start off with the words "After she finished writing the website". It makes you jump to the conclusion that she wrote the entire website, and then hauls you back with some extra information that changes the meaning.

So this is what you should take from today’s blog:

• You don’t need a comma to separate a subordinate clause from a main clause, but having one is okay, too.
• You do need a comma when your subordinate clause ends with a verb.

Good times.

Is it Mr. or Mr? Ms. or Ms? Mrs. or Mrs?

Which should I use? In other words, "to dot or not to dot"?

You know what? Both ways are acceptable. In American English (in other words, the wrong way*) they keep the dot — in other words, they write "Mr.", "Ms." and "Mrs." — and in British English we mostly just write "Mr", "Ms" and "Mrs".

As you no doubt know, "Mr" is an abbreviation of the word "Mister". The word is an alteration of the original "Master". Nowadays you would use "Master" to refer to a young boy: "Young Master Daniel looks so handsome with his curly hair". (I used to get that a lot, believe it or not.)

The plural of "Mr" is "Messrs", pronounced "messers" (as in, people who mess things up), which comes from the French "messieurs" (meaning "gentlemen").

"Miss", "Mrs" and "Ms" are all abbreviations of the word "Mistress". With the modern meaning of the word "Mistress" giving connotations of illicit, extramarital affairs, you don’t tend to hear it that much these days. Except if you’re an over-officious protocol droid, of course, in which case you’d probably use it a lot.

The plural of "Miss" is "Misses", although I can’t ever remember hearing it; the plural of "Mrs" is "Mmes", an abbreviated form of "Mesdames", from the French, er, "mesdames" (meaning "ladies"); and the plural of "Ms" is "Mses", although "Mesdames" can also be used.

The default way to refer to a man would be to use "Mr & Surname", unless you know he prefers to use a different honorific, such as "Dr". More and more these days, the default way to refer to a woman would be to use "Ms & Surname" (unless, as above, you know she prefers to use a different honorific, such as "Dr"), and that sounds right and proper to me. It’s bizarre that men’s marital status doesn’t ever come into the equation, while up until relatively recently you’ve been obliged to use "Miss" for unmarried women and "Mrs" for married women. Who cares whether or not they’re married?

*Hee! Kidding.

Postscript revision! My good friend Claire (who's a wonderful copywriter and is about to launch her own website) reminded me of the "Pride and Prejudice"-era form of using "Miss + Surname" for the eldest unmarried daughter of a family; every other unmarried daughter would be know as "Miss + First Name + Surname". So you'd have, for example, "Miss Jackson" and her younger sisters "Miss Claire Jackson" and "Miss Marguerite Jackson".