[rumcajz]

I was wondering about this construct several times in the past.

AFAIK English is not a pro-drop language, which means that the construct should be ungrammatical.

My impression was that it was introduced to American English be immigrants with pro-drop native languages (Italians? Slavs?) Am I completely off track?

[cwp]

Right, technically English doesn't let you drop pronouns. On the other hand there is a pretty long tradition of dropping first person pronouns in writing. You see it in informal correspondence and journals from before electronic media were omnipresent. Stuff like, "Went to the store today. Got stuck in a snow bank and had to call a tow truck."

I don't think it comes from immigrants that speak other languages, so much as economizing long passages of text that's all in the first person. The "I" at the beginning of every sentence just gets dropped.

[jholman]

It depends on whether you think "ungrammatical" means "not approved of by prescriptivists", or you mean "not used and/or not understood by fluent speakers".

Given that you know the word "pro-drop", I assume you know this, and I'm not sure if I should bother continuing in this vein. Maybe you're asking for a descriptive grammaticality judgement from fluent English speakers?

I agree that from a prescriptivist perspective, this is improper formal writing.

From a descriptivist perspective, I try to avoid biz guys, but I suspect the GP post nailed it, with respect to common usage in the appropriate sociolect (the same sociolect that has "proof points", "value-add", "circling back", etc). Although maybe not for the last sentence of an email that already had that much circumlocution.

[Evbn]

Ungrammaticality changes over time. For a new grad emailing her boss, douchy pro-dropping in English is ungrammatical. Eventually, it sinks in as an acquired taste, and becomes grammatical.

Hey, is it ungrammatical to call a woman Douchy?

[brc]

My son is learning to speak at the moment but can only use 'me' and 'them' as pronouns.

So everything is 'me going to have drink' or 'them going to the park'.

Right now I am in a constant pattern of repeating every sentence swapping 'me' for 'I' or 'them' for 'they'.

Then..this morning.. 'I ate my cereal without spilling anything Daddy!'. It's the little victories that make you smile.

[StavrosK]

"Pro-drop" languages usually incorporate the person in the verb. So "grab" in "we grab" is different than "I grab". In Greek, it's "πίνουμε" vs "πίνω". You omit the subject because you lose no information. In fact, it's redundant to include it, so you only do it if you want to emphasize it.

[losvedir]

I think we (American English speakers) tend to drop pronouns in informal writing more than in speech. At least, thinking about how I'd say things, I might elide the pronoun almoooost to the point of dropping it, but it still "feels" like it's there, even if it didn't come out very much.

But "was thinking the other day, why don't we..." sounds fine to me in an email. wouldn't say it out loud, though...

[nandemo]

> AFAIK English is not a pro-drop language, which means that the construct should be ungrammatical.

Not exactly. English is indeed considered not pro-drop, but that doesn't mean that dropping a pronoun is always ungrammatical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language#English

[bmuon]

Spanish is pro-drop and much more present in the US.

[rubyrescue]

the more spanish i speak the more i want to drop english words, and the more confortable i am moving the subject of the adjective to the end of the sentence.