Does 'Wicked' have a grammar error? What is the 'neck of the woods'? To be Frances
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Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today, we're going to talk about a possible grammar error in the movie Wicked and what we mean when we say we're in somebody's neck of the woods.

But first, welcome to the new Grammarpalusians who signed up to support the show and get the extras like the bonus segments and the ad-free podcasts. Old and new, you all help us keep going and we appreciate it. If you want to help, you can learn how at quickanddirtytips.com slash bonus.

There's been a grammar controversy bubbling up from the new movie Wicked, which is an adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked, which was loosely based on the 1995 novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which was inspired by the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, which was based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. That's a lot of media properties.

So here's the deal. A listener named Brian wrote to me and said, In several scenes in the movie, Elphaba corrects Glinda's grammar, yet she sings an entire song called The Wizard and I, which some are saying should actually be The Wizard and Me. I've seen arguments for both ways, and I'm not sure which is correct.

Well, first, it's true that Elphaba corrects Glinda in the movie. I haven't seen it yet myself, but I asked my followers on threads and have confirmed that Glinda says something like, Wow, green goes good with pink. And Elphaba says, It goes well with pink. And Glinda replies, It really does. Not realizing Elphaba was correcting her grammar. And after Glinda says she could care less, Elphaba says couldn't care less.

So, did the writers take our grammatically proper heroine and make her sing a grammatically incorrect song? Well, we have to look at the exact lyrics to figure it out. Here are two times you'll hear the phrase, the wizard and I, in the song. And that's how we'll begin, the wizard and I. That's how we begin, the wizard and I. I'll be the wizard and I.

Oh, what a pair we'll be, the wizard and I. Now, the question of whether Elphaba should use I or me in those lines grammatically hinges on whether the word needs to be a subject pronoun or an object pronoun. We use I for subjects, the ones doing the action, and me for objects, the targets of the action. For example, we'd say, I will meet the wizard. I is the subject doing the action, the meeting.

That sentence uses the most common English sentence structure, subject, verb, object. I, the subject, will meet the verb, the wizard, the object, the one being met. And in this common structure, the subject usually comes at the beginning of a sentence. So we're used to hearing the subject pronoun I at the beginning of sentences. I need to see this movie.

And here's an example that uses "me" in the object position: The wizard will meet me.

"Me" is the object receiving the action of being met, so we use the object pronoun "me." The wizard will meet me. Subject-verb-object. And in that common English sentence structure, we're used to seeing "me" at the end of sentences. And that's probably why people are hearing "the wizard and I" at the end of sentences in the song and are thinking it must be wrong.

But English is more complicated than just those simple subject-verb-object sentences, and the lyrics to the song The Wizard and I don't follow that common structure that has just the subject at the beginning and the object at the end. It has a double subject, a repeated subject, which we've actually talked about before back in episode 882.

Back then, we talked about what we called left dislocated sentences that put the most descriptive subject at the beginning, the left side of the sentence. That's something like, this whole movie, it's a lot of fun.

This whole movie is the descriptive subject. It's being something. Fun. And then for style or for emphasis, we name it again. But the second time, we use a less descriptive pronoun, it, which becomes the second repeated subject in the sentence. This whole movie, subject one, it, subject two, is a lot of fun.

It's a left dislocated sentence again, because if you're looking at the sentence on the page, the descriptive subject is on the left. Well, a sentence like, that's how we'll begin, the wizard and I, is super similar, but it's called a right dislocated sentence, because the most descriptive subject is on the right side of the sentence, at the end. That's how we'll begin, the pronoun we is the first subject,

The Wizard and I. The Wizard and I being the second, more descriptive subject. The main difference between a left-dislocated sentence and a right-dislocated sentence is just where the repeated information is placed. A left-dislocated sentence puts the noun phrase subject at the beginning of the sentence, on the left, before it's referenced by a pronoun. The ruby slipper? It holds so much power.

Whereas a right dislocated sentence puts the noun phrase subject at the end, on the right, after using a pronoun earlier. It holds so much power, the ruby slipper.

They're both grammatically correct, and they just have a different feeling or emphasis. When you put the descriptive subject first, it really sets the stage for what you're talking about and creates a more casual tone than just using the standard structure, which would be the ruby slipper holds so much power. And when you put the descriptive noun subject last, it can feel like you're adding a clarification or an afterthought, and it also creates a more conversational tone.

So thanks for the question, Brian. The writers didn't do Elphaba wrong. The Wizard and I lyrics are using the grammatically correct pronoun. And as a little bonus, if you want to hear a song that does have a little nod to Glinda's language challenges, check out the song Popular. About a minute in, Glinda corrects her pronunciation of the word popular.

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Imagine you're visiting the place where you grew up. As you climb out of your car, surrounded by familiar sights and nostalgia, a neighbor waves and shouts, Welcome back to your old stomping grounds. It's good to see you here in this neck of the woods. Ever wonder why we use such quirky phrases to describe the places we know and love?

Let's start with neck of the woods. We use this idiom to talk about a specific area or neighborhood, like welcome to my neck of the woods. This idiom likely originated in the United States in the early 1800s. The term neck to describe a narrow strip of land goes back to the 1600s. But the earliest known use of neck of the woods in print dates back to 1839 in the Havana Republican newspaper.

I calculate, considering the quantity of new settlements I've seen in this neck of the woods, the frontier is traveling westward. It's possible the phrase originally referred to actual wooded areas or forests, which could be why we say neck of the woods instead of something like neck of the village. There were a lot more woods back in the 1800s. But these days, it refers to any particular area or region, not necessarily someplace wooded.

The phrase stomping grounds doesn't have much to do with actual human stomping. It refers to a place you've spent a lot of time in and know really well. As in, I'm heading back to my old stomping grounds this weekend. The phrase actually comes in two forms, stomping grounds and stamping grounds. Both are correct and both seem to have also started in American English in the 1800s.

"Stamping ground" is the older form going back to 1821, but a Google Ngram search shows that "stomping ground" overtook "stamping ground" in the mid-1990s and is now the far more popular choice. But why all this foot beating on the ground to describe where you used to hang out?

Well, think about how some animals smoosh down vegetation to make a comfy place to sleep. Well, the words stomp and stamp both mean to bring your foot down heavily. So when you use the idiom stomping grounds, in a way, you're talking about your territory, a place you've marked with your presence, and who knows, maybe a stomp or two over the years.

Finally, when your friend says, that coffee shop is one of my favorite haunts, you probably know she's not talking about literally haunting the baristas, although that might make a cool story. In this context, a haunt is a favorite spot that you visit often.

This term has a much older history than stomping grounds or neck of the woods. It dates back to Middle English and comes from the old French word hanté, spelled H-A-N-T-E-R, meaning to frequent or visit often. The phrase hanté-chola actually was how people talked about attending school.

The use of haunt to mean a place you frequently visit dates back to the 1300s. Chaucer even used it in this sense in The Knight's Tale around 1385. Today, we often use haunts to talk about our favorite spots. Just remember, it's not about ghosts.

Now, these phrases aren't used equally everywhere English is spoken. Neck of the woods and stomping grounds are more at home in American English. On the other hand, haunts is comfortable on both sides of the Atlantic, equally at ease in a London pub or a Chicago coffee shop.

So what do all these idioms have in common? They're all about places we know well and feel connected to. It's cool how many ways we have to talk about feeling familiar. Whether it's your neck of the woods, your stomping grounds, or your favorite haunts, these phrases paint a vivid picture of our personal geographies. Next time you use one, think about how you're tapping into centuries of human experience and emotion.

That segment was written by Karen Lundy, a former Quick and Dirty Tips editor who's crafted hundreds of articles on the art of writing well. She was an online education pioneer, founding one of the first online writing workshops. These days, she provides writing tips and writing coach services at helpmerightbetter.com. Finally, I have a familect story from Asari.

Hello, Mignon. My name is Asare from Ghana, and I've enjoyed your podcast ever since I was in uni. It's been great. I have two familex for you. The first one was from my mom. And mom's going to be with the Lord now, but when she was around,

She used to have a word for something that was classy or oust class or like bougie. She would always say "granteep". Now, I don't know if it has its origin in French or anything, but she would be like, "Oh, you're looking very granteep today." "Oh, that's a very granteep building." You know, "Oh, that man looked very granteep." So growing up, it became part of our lingo, granteep, like bougie, classy, you know, high-end stuff.

The second is on the phrase to be frank. You know, everybody says to be frank, but, you know, within my circle, we say to be Francis. Now, this happened because there was a Frank we knew in our circle who was not too honest, you know. So he'll be like, oh, I'll be there at six, but then he'll end up arriving at eight o'clock. So we really couldn't count on Frank. But we knew a Francis who was a little more, you know, trustworthy than Francis.

Frank. So it would always be like to be Francis. So I didn't really enjoy that meal to be Francis. That's how we say it. So thanks for a wonderful podcast. It's very granteep and I'm being very Francis. Bye. Thank you, Asari. I love what you did there. And thanks for sharing your fabulous familect and friendilect.

If you want to share the story of a word you use with your family or friends that's just an insider thing nobody else would know, you can send it to me through a voice chat on WhatsApp like Asari did, or you can call the voicemail line at 83-321-4GIRL. Call from a nice quiet place like a closet or a parked car because I want to be able to hear your fabulous story.

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Nat Hoops in marketing, Holly Hutchings in digital operations, Dan Feierabend in audio, Brandon Goetjes, director of podcasts, Morgan Christensen in advertising, and Davina Tomlin in marketing, who just got to play with baby goats at the library. And I'm Mignon Fogarty, an inductee in the Podcast Hall of Fame and author of the tip of day book, The Grammar Daily. That's all. Thanks for listening.