Camera Concurrence

David Harsanyi does a nice job a­ttacking the idea that cameras belong in the Supreme Court (“Oyez Only,” November 16), but he omits what is perhaps the most important reason for a camera-free Court: The oral arguments generally don’t matter much, and it would be a mistake to make people think otherwise. The arguments might be great theater, and most of the justices love the back-and-forth. But if lawyers haven’t put together their positions in the strongest, most coherent way in the briefs, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to salvage the situation in the courtroom. (Though often ridiculed, Justice Thomas’s usual silence on the bench makes perfect sense.) Those who want to immerse themselves in real Supreme Court practice can read the briefs.

Erik M. Jensen Cleveland, Ohio

What about ‘I’?

As a lover of the nuance and correct usage of the English language, I have found it especially enjoyable to read Bryan A. Garner’s “Socratic Dialogue” series. This leads me to ask a question, though, regarding a statement made by Socrates in part 2 of the dialogue. “And in any event, not everyone wants to be a college professor or an itinerant philosopher, like you and me,” Socrates posits to Aristophanes. Ought he not to have completed that interlocution with “like you and I”? If the instruction I received so long ago was correct, his statement should end in the subjective. By completing the implied notion, Socrates would have said “like you and I are” or even “like you and I have become.” Or maybe Socrates was being deliberately colloquial.

Kenneth M. Stout Naperville, Ill.

Bryan A. Garner responds: Thank you for your kind words. Two points. Like is traditionally a preposition, not a conjunction. So writing like you and I are would be loose grammar. Remember the brouhaha in the 1950s and 1960s caused by the cigarette commercial, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”? Many people boycotted Winston cigarettes because the ads used like that way — proving that bad grammar can sometimes lengthen people’s lives. Or so it seems to a traditionalist like me.

Oh, that like me brings me to the second point. In assessing the case of a personal pronoun that’s second in a series, just leave out the first: You’d never refer to *a person like I. Just leave the other person out of it, and you’ll know whether the pronoun is the subject of a clause or the object of either a preposition or a verb. Come have lunch with (my wife and) me (not I), Please visit (my son and) me if you get the chance (not I), Sally and I are reading that book (not Me and Sally are).

I hope this helps. The instruction you received long ago was probably correct but has been misremembered. (That sentence begged for a passive-voice construction.) It happens all the time. So help spread the word, please. Don’t keep this just between you and me.