“This is she” vs. “This is her”

"You cannot correctly say “This is her speaking,” because speaking is not a noun, and therefore cannot be an object."

"Speaking" is a noun if used as a gerund. It represents the act of speaking, and it is her action. However, even though this may be grammatically correct, I agree that this meaning is slightly different from what the speaker probably intends. I think the intention is that "this" equates to "she/her" (with "speaking", if included, being a present participle describing "she/her"). Therefore, it all comes back to whether an objective noun is appropriate on the trailing side of a linking verb.

I was taught in school that it is acceptable to violate rules of grammar if you do so knowingly to better communicate, not out of ignorance or laziness. If you are speaking in a context where saying "This is she" or "It is I" would incorrectly communicate an air of pretentiousness, then using a less formal form is probably more "correct" in that it better communicates your intention.

Languages are fluid. The rules are always changing. Any choice of words is only as correct as its ability to deliver the desired meaning. It really comes down to knowing your audience.

It's "This is she." Here's why:

The 'is' is like an equal sign in this instance, because sentences like this, "is" shows the state-of-being relationship between the two ideas. "She" is identifying herself in this sentence. 'This' and 'she' are the same thing, and therefore are in the same case (the nominative). It has the exact same structure as "I am an English teacher." "I" and "an English teacher" are both nouns, and both in the nominative case, and are both the subject of the sentence, although in English you can't really reverse them and say "An English teacher am I." Unless you're Yoda.

Someone earlier talked about "This is her" as being possessive. That's correct, in a sense. To say "This is her" you must add an object to the sentence, as in "This is her ball."

You cannot correctly say "This is her speaking," because speaking is not a noun, and therefore cannot be an object. You *could* say "This is her ball," because "ball" is a noun and can be an object. But she OWNS the ball, which is an object.

"This is hers" would mean that the item belongs to her, not "this is her."

THIS IS SHE!

This discussion takes me back to before middle school, so many moons ago, to my dad's correcting me over and over about the way I answered the telephone. To my young southern ears, it sounded SO wrong to say, "This is she," that it couldn't possibly be right!

Eventually I learned to hear, "This is she," as correct, and later still, I learned the grammatical rules behind its correctness. But still I remember my young ears in their innocence and ignorance, their egocentricity, and that memory keeps me humble.

Vile proscriptionist grammarian humbuggary I vanquish thee! Choke on my syntactical ambiguity! If I wished to speak with SHE I wouldn't have asked for HER by name! And long live exclamation points!!! Huzzah The Bottom Line!!

What an interesting discussion! I have had so much fun reading individual's attempts at correcting others while making egregious mistakes themselves. I am with Umop and prefer to restrict myself to the question at hand. "Is Zai there?" . . ."Yes, speaking." However, I was taught "This is she" as the correct response so to me "This is her" sounds funny. For the record, English is my second language.

What is most revealing is our never ending compulsion to gauge and judge others by their use of language. (This thread being a fine example of that) I personally tend to side with the "purists", however that does not make me a snob, just a person who takes pride in being well-spoken. Furthermore, when addressing oneself to others it is ones TONE, above their use of language, which reveals any snobbery.

Yes, it "hurts" my ears to hear "Me and my friend . . ." and the like (BTW, John is right when he writes that countless Americans make this mistake) but I refuse to value that for anything more than a common grammatical error; although I will not tolerate it in my household.

So I am left with defending the rules of proper English usage when appropriate and certainly not in a derogatory manner. All the while understanding that language is not static and that the noblest example of an "educated person" is the sincere grace with which they interact with others, even when their use of language is "wrong."

Humbly.
A Communications Professional

P.S. Thanks to John for his insight!

I think all this is very interesting. I was taught in an English Grammar Theory course that languages, and the rules governing them, are organic. They are not static and evolve over time. Factors that influence changes almost always involve audience and usage. Although I understand the usefulness of prescriptive rules, I do find it trite to hover and debate over an issue like this. Could it be that usage pattern is eroding formal structure. Is this a bad thing?

I tend to get nervous when language is used as a tool for social demarcation - much like a previous comment which equated improper usage with mental deficiency or low social status. I don't believe communication is relegated to the wealthy - and isn't that the purpose of language? To communicate?

I say, "this is her," because it is natural to my tongue. Never once did the person on the other end misunderstand me. If they noticed and assumed I was from a trailer park or without mental function, they never let on. Answering a phone is not taking the SAT. Plus when I say "this is she," I feel 50 years older.

Let me get something straight: why is everybody disagreeing with John? (There, I just posed a question that is worthy of an entire book. Done.).

I mean, face it. He's right. Why? It's called "idiolect." At some point, someone in this thread said something about how absurd it would be if we all had our own personal grammars. Guess what. Absurd or not, that is the reality. Every individual on earth with the faculty for language creates their own linguistic forms based on an entirely personal set of rules called an idiolect. The fact that these idiolects have a lot in common within a given language is what gets us arguing over what is correct and what isn't.

Not to get too far off topic, the question posted nearly 2 years ago was whether "this is she" or "this is her" is correct. The answers to that question have drawn on analogous forms and in some cases, even used the rules of other languages (Latin) to justify English structures!! Talk about absurd. I think the original question is fascinating and John's corollary to it--the issue of copulative verb dependent pronomial case behavior (wow what a mouthful of nounspeak!)--is equally if not more exciting. The problem is, for nearly 2 years, I think the discussion is not gone in the right direction. Listen to John! He wants to get to the bottom of this! How would we answer these questions? First we'd have to look at concrete examples of usage (from literature, or speech, or both) to identify the formal processes that render one structure or another. But that isn't enough, we also need to ask how and why these things happen. Here is where the philological analysis of English pronouns and copulative verbs comes in. Enter: the bookworms. Then we want to know about what speakers actually think about what they say. Just read the posts here on this thread. We might eventually formulate an hypothesis not only about how case works in English pronouns within the context of copulative phrases, but also about the cultural context for this strange grammatical behavior. This is what linguistic anthropologists do! They bother people about how they talk and then they think about it...A LOT. Great stuff, everyone. A lot of good material here.

I don't expect everyone to understand all the rules of grammar since it's not even taught anymore, but I cannot believe this is an issue. Were you never taught this in Elementary school, or by your parents? "This is she" is antiquated but DEFINITELY correct. I promise you. May I be stricken dead this instant if I am wrong.

And that first comment was not meant to insult educators. I'm an English teacher, and I can tell you, the curriculum does not focus on grammar. None of my students have ever diagrammed a sentence.

I think the Suite101.com example is clearly wrong in its explanation. There is no "object" in the sentence "This is she." "IS" is a linking verb, therefore there is a subject and a predicate nominative.

My mother summed it up well:

Use "she" b/c it is the predicate nominative case (the implied sentence is, "this person speaking is she").

"This is her speaking" is incorrect too. Because again, you have a linking verb. You can't use an object form with a linking verb; you have to use a P.N.

John, this is where you will be interested to know that there are many native speakers of English in Asia, because English is by nature of its easy assimilation of foreign language words an international language. It has its roots in its Anglo Saxon origins, but to implicitly claim that people in Asia are not native speakers of English suggests that only those in western Europe, Canada and the rest of Northern America are Native English Speakers.

In fact, you should know that in Singapore, a country in SE Asia, English is its first language.

Also, your assertion that "not anything goes" is on its own a fallacy, because if a sizeable number of people started speaking in poetic language rather than in common prose, your positioning of adverbs and adjectives goes 'awry'.

Like it or not, if you had to teach children the rules of English, I wonder which population of English speakers you can refer to? Because sooner or later, judging from where your part of town is, it's not going to have the majority of speakers of English.

Come to Asia, and hear English as it is taught, not as it is treated by the whims and fancies of those who had made unconscious errors and have decided to casually abandon all they've been taught (depending on which space and time they exist) for the sake of "natural evolution" of language.

Speaking a language is such a different activity than driving a car that I don't think your analogy works. We don't learn our native language in the same way we learn to drive a car. We acquire language unconsciously, but we learn to drive consciously. Also, using nonstandard English will not result in death or prosecution.

How do we determine what is correct? I think the only reasonable position is that usage is the final arbiter. Look at the relevant evidence. How can any rules about English usage have no bearing on how English is used by the speakers and writers you want to emulate?

The idea that usage is the final arbiter has a place in discussions about correctness. It is not a new idea; Oldmixon wrote in 1712 that any arbiter besides usage is the "Arbitrary Fancy of a Few, who would impose their own Private Opinions and Practices upon the rest of their Countrymen." It is used by Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, which relies on evidence from real writers of English rather than opinions about how some people think English should be used. And they show that a lot of opinions about what is "correct English" don't describe the facts. For instance, "which" is used restrictively by many good writers more often than it is used nonrestrively. Singular "they" has been used for 500 years by the best writers of English.

I'm not saying that "anything goes," I'm saying "look at the relevent evidence." A lot of what we've been taught about "correct grammar" and grammar in general is unhelpful and often wrong. Language does have rules, and they are largely unconscious rules. For instance, no native speaker will normally produce the sentence "It can do easily it." We don't put adverbs between the verb and its object. This is a rule. It is also a rule for many speakers to use accusative pronouns after "be": it's me, it's her. And indeed many good writers use these constructions. Don't use these constructions if you don't want to, but there's no evidence for saying that they are incorrect.

So I am concerned with what is correct. I think a lot of assertions about what is correct are misinformed because they are based on opinions instead of evidence.

Here's an overview of prescriptivism in English:
http://www.uqu.edu.sa/majalat/humanities/2vol15/011.pdf

Here's a thought. John, there's a common thread in many of your posts about descriptivism, the nature of linguistics, etc. Well, how about this? When someone asks if something is correct English, stay out of it! As you have said many times, linguistics isn't concerned with prescriptive "correctness". It is only concerned with observing how some people speak. Knowing that more or fewer people use a particular twist of speech today than a few years ago, however interesting, does not mean that there are no language "rules" in English. The fact that linguistics is not concerned with rules or correctness does NOT mean that rules or correctness do not exist. If anything, your assertions make linguistics mostly irrelevant! It seems at times that you are asserting that anything that anyone says is OK as long as there are many, no, even a few people who say it. Well, I guess it is "OK" for them, but if someone is asking about correct grammar, such comments are not particularly helpful.
Everyone over the age of four learns English by studying it in school according to prescriptive rules. Yes, we don't have a government bureau of English, at least not in the US, but that doesn't mean we don't have a vast system of education much, if not most, of which is dedicated to the prescription of our language. If I may make an analogy, speeding is illegal almost everywhere on the planet. However, most people drive a little over the speed limit, some, a lot. Everybody does it mostly with impunity, but it's still against the law. If someone asked about it, an intelligent and useful answer would be "The rules say that you should drive within the speed limit. If you drive a little faster on the highway, you are unlikely to get a ticket. If you exceed the limit by more than, say, 10 MPH, you stand a good chance of being pulled over. Regardless, if you want to obey the law, you should not speed. While it is unlikely, you can get prosecuted for going even 1 MPH above the speed limit." It is NOT accurate or useful to say "Go ahead. speed if you want to. Everybody does it. Drive as fast as you want." It is also not helpful to say "Go ahead and speed. Everyone does. just be aware that if you drive dangerously faster than the norm, you might get a ticket, but that's OK, you're still a good driver, because there really aren't any rules. Rules are some arbitrary irrelevant thing made up by society. They shouldn't concern you." Linguists may not be concerned with grammar rules, but that doesn't mean that everyone else isn't or shouldn't be.

Reality Check #1:
This discussion has been going on for a YEAR! Better usage of time people? Simple solution: use something you know to be correct, do not risk sounding like an idiot (because either usage of she/her can have that result).

Reality Check #2:
Language is constantly evolving, from having a lot of vitality to near death (defend Latin all you want, 99% of the world does not really care). Therefore, this conversation will become irrelevant when the Chinese people take over the world and everybody will have to speak Cantonese or Mandarin.

Reality Check #3:
I already spent too much time on this inconsequential topic (compared to the big picture), so this will be my first and last post!

Much Love and Peach for All.

Look at what I did on related ones. Of course "This is she" is correct.

Is it just me (is it just I) or am I the only one who doesn't have this problem?
Maybe it's because it is not often me (it is not often I) who answers the phone. Or perhaps it is because when I do, if someone asks if I am there, I say, "Wait a minute, I'll check."

On second thoughts, I think 'this is she' is more grammatically correct.
Consider regular sentences with 'her' or 'she':
1. She is beautiful.
2. Her dress is beautiful.
If we were to insert names, each sentence would respectively be:
1. Sarah is beautiful
2. Sarah's dress is beautiful.
'Sarah' replaced 'She' and Sarah's' replaced 'Her'.
If Sarah were to be asked "May I speak with Sarah?', Her answer could be 'This is Sarah'. If she were to replace her name with she/her, from the sentences above, then her response should be 'This is she'.
I didn't major in English though..... and I realize my analogy wouldn't work with 'I', 'My' or 'Me'.... or some other she/her sentences, for that matter....

This is interesting. I was just called up by a company calling me in for a job interview. I answered the call with "this is she". Afterwards i wasn't sure if I answered correctly, so i typed the phrase into google..... Well, considering that from all the posts above, there isn't any general consensus on what's right or wrong, I don't think the person on the other line would think my English was poor, she might just be a little bit confused! A big relief!

Mitre, you are incorrect. In the sentence "If Jane is in the office, then I really need to speak to her," the proper word is "her" because it is the object of a preposition. The objective case word would be "her." In "This is she," "she" is a predicate nominative. The nominative case word is "she."

Ben, the correct sentence is "You are smarter than I," because the understood ending of the sentence is "You are smarter than I am smart." "You are smarter than me am smart" would never make sense.

It is obvious that the only thing that is "incorrect" is claming that one or the other situations is the "tecnical" truth.

First of all, grammar rules are not written in stone. Chaucer couldn't pass a modern grammar test and neither could Shakespeare. Language evolves based on usage.

In this whole forum, nobody has established an absolute, clear-cut rule. Additionally, nobody has defined their terms, and after doing several internet searches I still haven't gotten a good definition of what a copulative verb, a coordinated pronoun, or a substituted non-coordinated pronoun are. Why would a person use a fancy linguistical term that has no definition? The only answer I can come to is that they are just making it up to sound smart and reduce the possiblity of a retort. (If I'm wrong on this, prove it by providing simple definitions)

There is clearly, even among linguists, a division over whether it is correct to say "This is her" or "This is she" which leads me to suggest that this is a poor construction to use. Therefore, in my opinion, BOTH are wrong. When somebody asks:

"Is Jane there."

The ONLY absolutely correct answer that nobody can complain about is.

"I am Jane."

Furthermore, this kind of conversation is dangerous because people start misapplying the poorly explained rule to other situations. I had a friend of mine who is a high school ESL teacher try to tell me that it´s incorrect to say:

You are smarter than me.

And it should be:

You are smarter than I.

I´ve looked all over to see if there is any truth to this suggestion and the closest thing I found to a treatment of this was in the Raymond Murphy grammar book in which they said you can use EITHER "You are smarter than me." or "You are smarter than I am." but it said nothing about only using "You are smareter than I."

However, this should not be taken as an absolute rule either for there is a precident in the English language where implied words are not stated and the sentence is still gramatically correct.

So, to sum up, if linguists can't agree, then there is no hard and fast rule, OK.

And just to leave you with a little bit of a brain teaser, what about when somebody brings you something and says: "Here you go." How many grammatical rules are broken with that statement? Or is there some loophole "official" rule in the linguistic bible that justifies it?

We use "a" before a consonant sound and "an" before a vowel sound. So "a ubiquitous" is standard, because "ubiquitous" begins with a consonant sound: /y/ as in "you". And we write "an hour" because "hour" begins with a vowel sound.

"me and her are going" is not standard English. OK? OK.

However, it IS how many native speakers speak. Many people don't like it, but that won't stop other people using it. As I said before, it is useful to distinguish between opinions about "correctness" and how the language is actually used.

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Summer_2004/ling001/lecture1.html

I understand and appreciate both sides of this discussion, that there are rules that should be respected and adhered to regardless of "common" (i.e. incorrect and widespread) usage, and that some people prefer an incorrect usage to a correct usage that sounds formal, snobby or pedantic due to a ubiquitous lack of proper usage. (I really appreciate Sian's comments; he/she articulated his/her point of view perfectly, which happens to align rather neatly with my own.)

However, * no one * will EVER convince me that "me and her are going" or "me and my friend are xxx" is correct in any way, shape or form! John states that his friends who say this are well-educated. Perhaps they are brilliant in their respective fields...but their English usage in this case is atrocious. I'm not sure where he gets his argument about "native speakers", but I'm with everyone else who rejects his argument regarding this usage. It is simply wrong, wrong, wrong, no matter how you try to slice it.

Jess' comment that "common usage does not equal correct usage" was brilliantly succint and cuts to the heart of the argument.

Regarding another of John's comments, I don't find steps 3 or 6 in that link confusing at all; in fact, I find them quite helpful at times.

I find Mitre's final comments about matching a question's grammar to its answer rather absurd. One has nothing to do with the other. The caller asks to speak TO someone, and the preposition requires a certain part of speech after it. The grammatical construction of the answer is not dependent on the grammatical construction of the question!

All these opinions worth exactly the .00 you paid for them :)

Melissa

P.S. I'd love to hear about the rules for usage when a written word begins with a vowel that sounds like a consonant. Case in point: in my first paragraph, I said "a ubiquitous" instead of "an ubiquitous". The latter is, I believe, technically correct; however, since most of us actually sound out words in our head as we read, the former sounds "better", or at least, less awkward. (Yes, I recognize the irony inherent in the fact that I chose to utilize the common usage over the correct usage despite railing against such a choice about half a second ago.) Has anyone seen this kind of issue addressed or codified in a rule somewhere? If so, I'd greatly appreciate a link.

"technically correct"

I don't like that phrase. It implies to me that there is a Manual of English that explains the hard and fast rules of all English for all time, and also that such rules even exist. Also, I wonder about the cognitive dissonance produced by thinking that something is "technically correct" but seldom used.

As I say above, from a descriptive point of view, I'm thinking that the subject-object distinction in pronouns is becoming obsolete. Instead we have a situation with default pronouns (me, him, her etc), which are replaced by marked pronouns (I, he, she etc) in certain situations.

The fact is that this is something that usage writers disagree about. Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage gives an overview of the arguments, then says

"Clearly, both the it is I and It's me patterns are in reputable use and have been for a considerable time. It is I tends to be used in more formal or more stuffy situations; it's me predominates in real and fictional speech and in a more relaxed writing style. Him, her, us, and them my be less common after the verb to be than me is, but they are far from rare and are equally good."

Hey Jen,

Ok, so your lesson has passed now, but here's what you tell your students: "this is she" is technically correct but "this is her" is often used.

Done.

wow. im teaching english as a second language and this question came up in class today. after reading this entire page i still have no clue what to say to my students on monday. *sigh*

Scenerio#1: Your name is Jane. You are in a room (crowded with people), and someone asks: "Who is Jane?"

Do you say?
1. "This is she!"
2. "This is her!"
3. "I am Jane." or "I am."

CORRECT ANSWER: # 3

Scenerio#2: Your name is Jane. The phone rings, you pick up, and the caller says: "May I speak with Jane?"

Do you answer?
1. "This is she!"
2. "This is her!"
3. "You're speaking to Jane."

CORRECT ANSWER: # 3
Furthermore, I've never heard callers begin a phone conversation by asking: "Who is Jane?" If they would, then #2 would be correct.

On the same note, callers never say: "If Jane is in the office, then I really need to speak to SHE." If that was correct, then the grammatically correct way to answer would be: "This is SHE."
A more grammatically correct way to say this: "If Jane is in the office, then I really need to speak to HER." Then, the correct way to answer would be: "This is HER." or "This is Jane."

"me and my friend are going out" is how many native speakers use their language. Maybe not you, chuck, but many native speakers do say this. And I don't see what's wrong with educated speakers using this in some contexts - it just means they may not be educated in a certain prescriptive rule that is not part of their native language. And by "educated speakers" I mean my friends who have Canadian university degrees.

Note that I never said that "me and my friend are going out" is standard English as defined by say, Merriam-Webster. I don't think it is. But there are many different kinds of English, and standard English is just one kind.

My point is simply that I think it's useful to distinguish between how native speakers use their language, and the opinions of usage commentators. Because that is all these rules about grammatical correctness are - opinions.

Anonymous's remarks to John may have been overly harsh, but, to tell you the truth, I can't help but appreciate anonymous's frustration. For someone to assert that "me and my friend are going out" is somehow normal or acceptable is just plain absurd. Even the most liberal descriptivist doesn't accept that anything anyone says or hears is grammatically correct, just because it is said or heard.

Furthermore, the claim that "It is what a lot of speakers say, including well-educated speakers I know." is equally absurd and proves nothing. If someone consistently says something that is so egregiously, grammatically incorrect, then, by definition, he or she is not well-educated. Anyone who identifies such a person as well-educated merely betrays their own lack of discrimination. That's probably what sparked anonymous's outburst in the first place.

PS, I would also disagree with some of John's basic facts. It's one thing to discuss whether "this is she" is required, optional, or archaic. It's quite another to suggest that "me and my friend are going out" illustrates the very rule for proper grammar. I'm sorry, but this is NOT how native speakers use their language. To assert otherwise as fact is just incorrect. You do hear it, but not commonly, and never from anyone well-educated, usually from a small child. Certainly, no one I know speaks that way.

I personally waver between trying to be a purist - and to talk 'correct' English - and trying to be a normal everyday human, who is living with and using an evolving thing. If I arrive home, I call out "It's me!". I don't say '"It is I". I am aware that by the 'correct rules' of language - laid down fundamentally by the prissy and over-zealous Victorians - I should say "It is I"; but I am also quite aware that to the modern ear, it sounds silly and frankly wrong. That is what linguistic evolution is all about.

That being said, I will absolutely insist upon using 'I' when I say 'My friend and I are going out'; because I would say 'I am going out'. Conversely, simply because it just doesn't sound right, I will not say "I and my friend are going out."

I am educated, I am (fairly) aware of my language, and so I will try to use it correctly. Fundamentally, I try to use it to express what I mean, and to ensure that my audience will understand what I am saying; without excessive pedantry.

Oh - although 'shall' and 'will' remain a bit of a mystery to me!

The easiest rule to follow would be to place your subject first, that is following the pattern-Subject Verb Object. Example, "He is the best runner." and not "The best runner is he."

In any case Cal and Jess are correct in that one must live up to rules and not the other way around. If we don't hold the line then widespread use of "ain't" and "ax" for ask will be our future.

This is from Ronald Wardhaugh's "Proper English," which I recommend if you are interested in this at all:

Whatever a grammar of a language is, it is largely impervious to human intervention. That is, the really interesting rules and principles are so basic that we cannot do anything at all about them. What we can do is try to influence some of the minor outcomes, for example, try to insist that people say "I drank" instead of "I drunk" or "It's I" instead of "It's me". Essentialy that is tinkering with matters of no linguistic consequence. To elevate the study of grammar to the task of trying to bring about "correction" in such matters is to trivialize that study. These matters may be of social consequence and often are, but that is a social observation and not a linguistic one, because "I drunk" and "It's me" are linguistically on a par with "I drank" and "It's I". Furthermore, it is an observation that tells us much about social organization and the function of trivia in such organization and nothing about the structure of language.

What does equal correct usage? Shakespeare used "between you and I" - 200 years before English grammar was taught in school.

We find "take a picture of her and I"
but we never find "take a picture of I"
We find "her and I are going out"
but we never find "her is going out"

Why is that? What is it about 2 pronouns conjoined by "and" that makes them behave differently than a single pronoun? This is the question we should be asking. Insisting that one usage is wrong and the other is right because of some Latin-derived prescriptive rules doesn't help us learn anything interesting about language.

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/prescription.html

Common usage does not equal correct usage.

P.S. "Anonymous".. I find your comments about "special ed" and "trailer parks" rather rude and completely out of line. You don't need to stoop to meaningless insults to get your point across.