On the Jeopardy! aired last night, the Final
Jeopardy! category was
U.S. Territories and the answer was:
Of the 5
inhabited U.S. territories, this is the
only one where
cars drive on the left.
We got this immediately, having spent
many wonderful weeks over the years vacationing on St. John in the Caribbean: The
correct question was,
What are the
U.S. Virgin Islands?
That question got me to wondering, what
are the other four inhabited U.S. territories? Isn’t Wikipedia a wonderful
thing?
The U.S. has five
permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico and the
U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands
in the North Pacific Ocean, and American Samoa in the South
Pacific.
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Northern Mariana Islands
Guam
American Samoa
Driving on the left side was initially a
bit of a challenge, but over the years we certainly became used to it. For
those who might be curious, the cars there, which presumably are manufactured
in countries with right-side roadways, have drivers’ seats on the left side, so
it is, I suppose, a bit odd for those coming from the UK and other countries
where the cars are made to accommodate the different driving patterns.
We
may be able to drive our cars on different sides of the roads but you would
hope we could agree on some basic rules of grammar. Perhaps because I have been
subjected to too much media (print, electronic, and television) lately, I am
finding myself annoyed almost every day with the flagrant disregard for those
rules. Here is one you see frequently that I just picked up in a fundraising
e-mail:
Let’s do it again in 2020: pitch in $10 or more now to help Adam and
I win our re-election campaigns and hold the House so we can
keep making progress.
To
help Adam and I? You want to help I? What ever
happened to helping me? When did “me” become a forbidden
word? Somehow people have the impression that “me” is too informal. But, no,
and here is the distinction:
· “I” is the subject pronoun, which means that it is
used as the subject of a verb, the one "doing" the verb.
· “Me” is the object pronoun, which means that it is
used as the object of the verb.
So,
please, if I need help, then I will ask you to help
ME!
Be well, and drive safely!
Love,
Rebecca
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