Confusing Grammar question

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Anonymous

#542188 Wed, 16 Jul 08 04:13 AM

Dear Readers ,
I have a confusion regarding the following sentences
1.) The person at the door was he/The person at the door was him.
The person at the door was I/ The person at the door was me.

In such sentences what is the subject and what is the object? The problem is that if you flip the sentences meaning doesn't seem to change but subjects and objects do. The confusion is whether to use object pronoun "him/me" or subject pronoun "I".

To me, it just sounds better with "him/me" but textbooks seem to use "he/I" instead. For eg. "No one knew that the Thief was I".
I asked a professional editor and native english speaker. She was not confident but preferred "him/me".

2) It has changed/It has been changed.
Do these sentences mean the same thing? Is one of them grammatically awkward/incorrect? both of them seem to be "present perfect". is that true?

Any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Zia

Anonymous

Grammar, Nouns, Pronouns, Present perfect

Cool Breeze

#542259 Wed, 16 Jul 08 08:33 AM

Anonymous
1.) The person at the door was he/The person at the door was him.
The person at the door was I/ The person at the door was me.

2) It has changed/It has been changed.
Do these sentences mean the same thing? Is one of them grammatically awkward/incorrect? both of them seem to be "present perfect". is that true?

1. Both are correct but he and I are used in very formal writing only. The grammatical subject is the person.

2. The first sentence is in the active voice and the second is in the passive voice. Both are correct and mean different things. At least usually, it has been changed suggests that somebody has intentionally changed "it". However, English is often rather vague and inexact with regard to structures like this, and it may be possible to find examples where no such intention is involved.