The Difference Between Nominative and Objective

English Doesn’t have case the way many other languages do. We don’t name dative case and accusative case, we just say “objective case.” We also don’t say “nominative case” (but that’s changing). I remember my teacher calling it the “subjective” case because the word was the subject of the sentence. Just the same, we do have some inflectional endings; perhaps the most notorius is the “m” in “who-whom.” Hence the comic:

The owl is correct—”who” is for subjects (and predicate nominatives), “whom” is for direct objects and objects of prepositions.

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Linking verbs (mainly forms of “to be”) are tricky because they don’t take direct objects. They take predicate nominatives. Think of linking verbs as equivalent to an equals sign. The nouns on both siides of the linking verb are the same in some sense, so they both get the nominative. Predicate adjectives are tricky because English adjectives don’t show case, so they all look like nominatives even though they describe something, not name it. The kid makes this mistake; she thinks “rapid-fire” is the name of the answer.

Maybe I should have posted this one before the previous post. but the lesson is the same.

Should be “If Lassie were a cat.”

(“Into” instead of “in” is another lesson.)

Both this and the previous post owe credit to Comic Strip of the Day.

“If” implies a situation we call “contrary to fact.”

Speculation regarding situations contrary to fact requires that the caption read “I wish I were rich.” Otherwise, it’s plain old past tense, as the fortune teller knows.

Hint: panels two and three.

Easy to miss! But I suspect a more readable font would help.