Often, in these situations, the news I must deliver is bad. Usually, at least one party is wrong. Which means that one is right. Which means that the second party can wield my verdict over his or her mate for the rest of their days together (which may not be many). On rare occasions, both parties are wrong. And, when I tell them so, the underlying message is bittersweet: Sure you’re wrong, but now you know that, grammar-wise at least, you’re made for each other.
But every once in a while I get a letter that makes it all worthwhile — an opportunity to bask in the rewards of the most rewarding profession I never had. Mr. and Mrs. K are that rare couple. They wanted to know “who’s right?” and I got to tell them: “You both are.”
In grammar, there exists something called the predicate nominative. The name is a turnoff, I know. But the concept is simple. Whenever you have a sentence in the form noun + “is,” or a similar verb + another noun, that second noun is called the predicate nominative. And yes, the same formula applies when a pronoun stands in for one or both of the nouns.
I think of this construction as a sort of seesaw. The manager is Bob. Bob is the manager. Both nouns refer to the same thing. They’re of equal weight.
That brings us back to Mrs. K’s question. Mrs. K was taught that you use a subject pronoun like “she,” “he,” “I” or “we” in the predicate nominative position: “It was she.” Mr. K believes that an object pronoun like “her,” “him,” “me” or “us” sounds more natural: “It was her.”
