Hi, Damien!

Outwith seems to me a perfectly normal word in Scotland but I've hardly ever heard it used outwith Scotland. But that's outwith the scope of my point.

I agree wholeheartedly with your footnote about I and me and the miseducation that some parents (and maybe some teachers) inflict upon their children. I agree with all of it - except one enormous blunder: "me" is not a preposition! And there you were, writing about correct grammar!

Now I'll take a look through a few more of your blog entries.

Catherine

Damien wrote:

And just to mention a grammatical pet hate of mine, I loathe that children are being taught (or at least appear to be) that 'I' should come after all the other names of people in a list. This implies to the child that, "Bob met Bobette and I at the cinema," is a valid sentence. It's very, very simple. If you are the subject or one of the subjects of a sentence, refer to yourself as 'I'. If you are the object or one of the objects, the preposition 'me' is used. No exemptions. If 'Bob met Bobette and me' sounds bizarre to you, you've just been miseducated.