1. “He invited him and I,” is not an unheard-of blunder. People often needlessly shrink from saying a correct sentence like this—“He invited him and me”—and will even insert the full names of him and me rather than out with the right case of the pronoun.
2. In asking a question, think whether who or whom is required. “Whom did you see?” but, “Who was it that you saw?”
3. Let governs the objective case, quite as any other active verb. “Let John and me go.”
4. An error often occurs in the case of the relative after a verb of saying, thinking, telling, and the like. “Franklin’s Autobiography is the work of a man whom I should think would be known to every American.” The whom is wrong for who. Had the writer set off “I should think” by commas, he would have seen the mistake.
5. How should the following newspaper sentence be corrected? “He stated that the offering was $101,500, an amount upon which he would stake his honor would all be paid up.”
On the Reference of Pronouns.
1. In the use of pronouns one cannot be too careful that each refers to the right person. “Farmer Jones called on his neighbor and told him that his cows were in his pasture,” leaves us in doubt whether Farmer Jones came to make a complaint or an apology. How should the sentence be constructed to remove the ambiguity? The following delicious error has been much quoted: “If fresh milk does not seem to agree with the child, boil it.” How change the sentence to save the child’s life?
2. Sometimes a demonstrative can be used to better advantage than a personal pronoun. “They lent us their horses for the afternoon and these [not they] took us a long way out into the country.”
3. Sometimes it is better to repeat the antecedent, varying it by simple synonyms, than to use any pronoun. Not, “He gave him his word of honor, that whenever he should see his brother in London, he would do all for him that he ought to do for an old comrade’s brother.” Rather thus: “He gave his friend his word of honor, that whenever he should see the latter’s brother in London, he would do for the boy all that a man ought to do for the brother of an old comrade.”
4. Acquire a habit of writing, “It is he,” or “It’s he,” instead of “He is the one.” This latter phrase is permissible in colloquial speech, where its clumsiness is not much felt. The correct expression may sometimes seem over-precise. But a person of tact ought to be able to speak correctly without seeming affected.