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While receiving a phone call, the man on the other end of the call was looking for another woman. When finished asking for her, he said: "Are you she?" I've always heard "Are you her" and this was a first for me. "Are you she?"... is it proper English?

choster
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Hillary J Porter
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    Yes, if you want to sound like Jeeves in Wodehouse's novels (and a poser nowadays). If you're unhappy with 'Are you her?' as sounding a little unrefined, use something like 'Are you that Jane Smith?' – Edwin Ashworth Jun 11 '20 at 14:26
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    Theoretically, "Are you she?" is better English than "Are you her?" The verb "to be" does not take an object - it takes a complement, and the complement is in the nominative grammatical case. Thus, "It is I" and "We are they.", etc. However, this use currently sounds somewhat formal and old fashioned, and what you have heard: "Are you her?" / "It is me." / "We are them." etc., are far commoner and completely acceptable except in the most formal of circumstances. – Greybeard Jun 11 '20 at 14:30
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    Does this answer your question? Can't decide between She/her Also see “Being he/him is not easy.” Which is prescriptively “correct”? The short answer is that conversationally, the "objective" pronoun comes naturally to most people in the predicate nominative position. It's her, all right. – choster Jun 11 '20 at 14:39
  • A good rule in cases like this, where there is something wrong with either of the possibilities, she or her. The subject form, she, does indeed sound a bit stilted, even though strictly correct, while the object form, her, is possibly less stilted but jars on the ears of any who take grammar at all seriously. My advice is that in such case, find another way round: avoid she and her, both. Often a good alternative round things is to reverse the situation. You might say: "I should like to speak to ... : is that you?" – Tuffy Jun 11 '20 at 15:37
  • I'll go so far as to say 'If you use "The only people who turned up were we", you'll be considered incorrect by almost everybody, theoretically correct (whatever that means) though it might be.' – Edwin Ashworth Jun 11 '20 at 16:19
  • @EdwinAshworth Which is why you should put the pronoun at the front of that particular sentence and say we were the only people who turned up, which sounds more natural than the reverse formulation anyway … – Jason Bassford Jun 12 '20 at 01:27
  • They are both grammatical, but Google Ngram Viewer shows that her is twice as common (at least in print). – Jason Bassford Jun 12 '20 at 01:30
  • @Jason Bassford You might want to delete that comment after examining how many of the 3-gram results for [are you she] actually correspond to "Are you she?" I've counted one (a quirky title) in the first 30. Oh, and 'which is why one should' 9in the previous comment) would be less likely to be construed as patronising. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 12 '20 at 13:14

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