Grammar Nazi!

[EKDS5k]

A student recently posed a question to me:

Why do we say:

"This news is nonsense to me."

and

"This game is difficult for me."?

I can't find anything on it in my grammar textbook, and the best I can come up with is that the second one is describing an activity, and the verb "to play" is implied at the end. Whereas the first one is describing a thing, and the comparison "looks like" is implied somewhere. Is there rules on this stuff or what?

[pd Rydia]

I imagine it has something to do with how in Spain, I had to make my suitcase when I was getting ready to come home. <p>

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<div style="text-align:center">"Pants are bad!!! We should wear pants only on our head you conformist bastard!!! Pants are the devils work!! Run freee!! And pantless!!!" -- Vulture</div>
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[PriamNevhausten]

You're pretty much correct. In the second one, there is an implied follow-up infinitive phrase.

"This game is difficult for me (to play/eat/destroy)."

Though the sentence "This game is difficult to me" is also not incorrect when used in an appropriate context; it is just less frequently heard.

As for the other one, "This news is nonsense to me"--it is a metaphor. To put it instead in simile: "This news is as nonsense to me," or, "This news is like nonsense to me." Similar to the original are sentences like "The snow was a blanket on the earth this morning," and "Buttered toast is Heaven." The "to me" part simply addresses that the metaphor has only one indirect object, i.e. the news is understood to perhaps be something other than nonsense to someone else.

Also, common usage does not, ironically, denote correctness. For example, the commonly-heard sentence "It's me" is grammatically incorrect--after a linking verb, one is to use the subjective case of a pronoun, in this case making the correct sentence "It's I."

In conclusion, apple monkey carburetor. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=priamnevhausten>PriamNevhausten</A]&nbsp; at: 4/9/05 4:32

[Banjooie]

Whoa, you're right. It /is/ It's I. <p><Chat> <Matto says, "What's up?"
<Chat> <Prince_Herb says, "Angst."
<Chat> <Prince_Herb says, "Drama."
<Chat> <Prince_Herb says, "Betrayal."
<Chat> <Prince_Herb says, "Plushies."</p>

[Idran1701]

Just a minor point, but you do hear a correct form of that sentence in the common telephone response "This is he/she". Though why you only hear the correct form in this situation is something I'm not sure of. <p>

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"Never let your morals get in the way of doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
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[PriamNevhausten]

Indeed. I think this is probably exclusive to the I/me pair. Strange, and possibly meriting research. When I'm not lazy, that is. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=priamnevhausten>PriamNevhausten</A]&nbsp; at: 4/9/05 5:24

[EKDS5k]

Thanks. Actually, I got halfway through explaining it today and picked up on the metaphor/simile thing, which made the rest of it much easier to explain.