Two Words for “We”

Out in the other side of the Pacific someplace is a pidgin language with two words for ‘we,” and I think the words make a useful difference. One word is “youme,” which includes the speaker and the person being spoken to, and the other is “mefella,” which includes the speaker and others, but not the person being spoken to.

This comic gets its humor from the distinction between these to variants. Can you tell which versions of “we” are which?

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A pleonasm is an unnecessary word in a sentence. An example of a word that’s frequently unnecessary is “different.” For example, take a look at this sentence from an article on using hydrogen to create electricity:

“This process involved a lot of different steps, and at each step we felt we were making progress, which kept us motivated,” Grinter told New Atlas.

https://newatlas.com/science/clean-energy-electricity-produced-air

But sometimes “different” is necessary. Here’s another sentence from the same article:

It’s certainly not the first surprise new finding to come from a different field of study.

Why is “different” okay here, but not in that first sentence? The difference is the number of things you’re comparing. “Lots of steps” is the same as “lots of different steps,” but when you compare only two things, “different” is helpful. “A field of study” is not the same as “a different field of study.”

So think when you write! Leave out those extra words. Concise is nice.

To make this post a bit less poring, here’s a picture from the article:

I do a lot of proofreading, so I like this one.

What can I say? The proofreader is right, as always.

Last panel. Shouldn’t it be “wiser than me”?

Having the pronoun all by itself gives a strong direct object signal, “me.” But we have an ellipsis here. The last word is left off. The ‘correct’ sentence ends with “wiser than I am.” Now the “I” sounds right!

I should add a bit more information. That sentence has another ellipsis. Put “who is” after “someone.” Now, perhaps, you can see that “I” is a predicate nominative, not a direct object.

Okay, class, lesson’s over. Don’t feel bad; no one will notice if you get this kind of sentence wrong.

Not a lot of content, but at least it’s about grammar.

And the grammar is correct! Good pun, too.