<p>I just ran across this sentence in a college magazine. It’s written by the editor, but just doesn’t sound quite right. Is it?</p>
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<p>It seems the author is attempting a casual, conversational tone. However, if you take out the parenthetical expression, the sentence does not make sense. So, no, it is not grammatically correct.</p>
<p>A couple of problems with that sentence, but I think it’s the writer’s intended “voice.” </p>
<p>Ds just had me read an essay he wrote for school, and I pointed out something I thought was wrong. He told me why he did it that way, and I didn’t press it, because his explanation made perfect sense. Not sure it applies in this context.</p>
<p>The only thing wrong with the sentence is that it begins with a conjunction, and that’s a standard-grammar no-no. But that rule is so often broken, it hardly counts as a rule anymore. (Alternatively, one could decide that “but” has an alternate function, not as a conjunction, but as an adverb, like “however” or “nevertheless”, that can be used to start sentences.) The repetition of “you and I, we” for emphasis and rhythm is a pretty common stylistic trope, as is ending the sentence with the request for confirmation “didn’t we?”. The bones of the sentence – [However], we knew that [information contained in a previous sentence] – doesn’t lack sense at all.</p>
<p>There’s nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence. "You and I’ is proper because the phrase is in the subject position (synonymous with “we” in “we knew that already’.”) Using “you and I” after a preposition is incorrect: e.g. “between you and I”: some people incompletely assimilate this rule, then incorrectly generalize to imagine that all uses of “you and I” are suspect. Some people don’t like to begin sentences with conjunctions, but there’s no rule against it. Shellz, the piece of the sentence between the commas isn’t a parenthesis.</p>
<p>jingle-
a parenthetical expression is an interruption to the flow of thought, set off by commas. It is an “extra” to the sentence which may help to clarify the writers intent, or offer more detail.</p>
<p>When the expression is taken out, however, the sentence must still make sense. ;-)</p>
<p>But here, the alleged parenthetical doesn’t interrupt the flow of thought. It’s the core of the expression, and the prefix and affix phrases are supplemental. In fact, it’s the part that can stand on its own and make sense without its buddies coming before and after it. The “But you and I” phrase serves the same purpose as an adverbial introduction, like “Unfortunately.”</p>
<p>Hanna…good point. Upon re-reading the sentence, I see what you mean. </p>
<p>Perhaps it would be better to write it as such… But you and I knew that already, didn’t we?</p>
<p>Not as conversational…which I think was the intent of the writer.</p>
<p>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—<br>
I took the one less traveled by,<br>
And that has made all the difference.</p>
<p>(It’s a stylistic choice, as others have pointed out, and it’s absolutely fine. There is no grammatical error.)</p>
<p>I think the “parenthetical expression” in this sentence is the opening phrase, not the middle phrase. In which case, the sentence does work without it.</p>
<p>Not sayin’ you’ll find this POV in a grammar textbook :).</p>
<p>"But you and I, we knew that already, didn’t we? "</p>
<p>Stylistically, it’s just fine–clearly conveying what the writer wanted to convey.</p>
<p>“But we, you and I, knew that already, didn’t we?” –sounds better to my ear, and may well be the correct answer in a multiple choice test.</p>
<p>I concur with the majority; the sentence is fine.</p>
<p>Haddon, no I disagree. The original sentence flows better than your version. It’s okay to have a parenthetical phrase at the start of a sentence. It’s all in what you want to emphasize.</p>
<p>shellz, a parenthetical, also called a parenthesis, is a phrase between commas that can be omitted without ruining the grammar or general sense. For instance: “Mr. Shenstone, the busdriver, told us to sit down.” “The busdriver” is a parenthetical. So is “also called a parenthesis,” for that matter. Not all phrases between commas are parentheticals–including the one in the sentence under discussion here.</p>
<p>Hey Jingle…you’re late to the party…see post #8</p>
<p>Anyway, Potato/Potahto…parenthetical expression/parenthesis…I’ve moved on. So should you.</p>
<p>The OP’s sentence follows a “topic-comment” pattern, not a standard English subject-predicate pattern. “You and I” is the grammatical topic. The rest of the sentence is the grammatical comment. </p>
<p>Other examples:
That Jack, he’s a riot.
My watch, I seem to have forgotten it.</p>
<p>Topic-comment structures are common in some languages, but may seem a little unorthodox in written English. In the OP’s sentence, the first “we” is redundant. Nevertheless, as a representation of conversational English, it sounds natural to me. The repetitive “we” conveys a relaxed and familiar tone.</p>
<p>I think the sentence is correct.</p>
<p>Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table</p>
<p>– T.S. Eliot</p>
<p>^ 
A perennial favorite of mine!</p>
<p>“I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas”</p>
<p>Okay, Robert Frost (which really wasn’t a great example, sorry) and T.S. Eliot have weighed in. </p>
<p>Yeats wants to speak, too: “You and I, we are the two fools, we know everything, but we will not speak.”</p>
<p>(I wasn’t going to cite Bob Dylan because I figured it was too obvious, but here we go: “But you and I, we’ve been through that, And this is not our fate.”)</p>