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!

Is ‘The Wizard and I’ grammatically correct?

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.”

What grammar mistakes does Elphaba correct in ‘Wicked’?

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? We have to look at the exact lyrics to find the answer:

Here are two times you’ll hear the phrase “the wizard and I” in the song:

That’s how we’ll begin
The Wizard and I

Oh, what a pair we’ll be
The Wizard and I

Subject and object pronouns in English

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. Here’s an example:

 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). 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.

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 talked about before in episode 882.

Left-dislocated sentences

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 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 1), it (subject 2) 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. 

Right-dislocated sentences

Well, a sentence like “That’s how we’ll begin, the wizard and I” is 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 wizard and I. (The pronoun “we” is the first subject, and “the wizard and I” is 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.

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, but they create a different feeling or emphasis.

When you put the descriptive subject first, it sets the stage for what you’re talking about right away 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 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 bonus, if you want to hear a song that does have a little nod to Glinda’s language challenges, check out the song “Popular.” At about a minute in, Glinda corrects her pronunciation of the word “popular.”

And since I had a little extra time over the break, I made a quiz to go with this segment. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. 

Web Bonus: Quiz

Subjects and Objects

1. Fill in the blank with the correct subject or object pronoun (“I” or “me”):

The Wizard invited Glinda and ___ to the Emerald City.

2. Fill in the blank with the correct subject or object pronoun (“I” or “me”):

Glinda and ___ are practicing our spellcasting.

Dislocated Sentences

3. Circle the left-dislocated sentence:

That green-skinned witch, she really knows her spells.
She really knows her spells, that green-skinned witch.

4. Circle the right-dislocated sentence:

The flying monkeys, they made me cry when I was little.
They made me cry when I was little, the flying monkeys.

Answers on the next page.