Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello!

I found this in a customer's review of the "A Word a Day" book at Amazon.co.uk. Can anyone explain why the line reads "to we English" instead of "to us English"?

"As fascinated as I am with all word books, I wish someone had bothered to point out it is written and published in America - ergo many words in the normal text are spelt (to we English) incorrectly! I would have preferred to buy a similar book written by an English person. "

Thanks
George Diamantopoulos
EFL Teacher

Taken in isolation (and note that it 'to we English' is an aside, in parenthesis), 'to us English' could have this kind of meaning: 'These spellings aren't to us English' (that is, 'aren't proper English to us') - here both uses of the word 'English' refer to the language and how its words are spelt rather than to the English people as a nation.

So, the sentence doesn't read 'many words in the normal text are spelt (to us English) incorrectly' just to make it extra clear that it is the English people as nation that is being referred to here (not that there could be any misunderstanding with the spaced verb and adverb 'spelt...incorrectly': 'are to us English incorrect'); plus, the cadence sounds a little better with 'we' rather than 'us'.

"We English" considered to be a single lexeme, and so not subject to inflection as a single 'we' would be. Another example from the BYU site is "to we blacks". Where the collocation is less common, as in "us lazy foreigners" , it is much more likely that the pronoun would be considered an individual lexical item.

to us English would of course be correct, and more likely I believe ,but unfortunately Google searches are not case-sensitive so a search for the string "to us English" will bring many more hits for "to US English.".

it all seems pretty clear now, thanks!