Em dash + us too

Hi there!
Could you help me with this sentence, please?
It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems —and maybe us too— work.

As I understand these em dashes as syntactic isolators because I can move the whole block to the right:
It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems work —and maybe us too—.

Does it sound natural to you in English or would it be better to say —and maybe we too—?

Yes, the sentence means: "It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems (and maybe we/us too) work.

"Us" here illustrates this widely applied, but commonly disparaged, rule of grammar: "we" is a positional variant of "us" that only ever appears in immediate proximity to a verb as the sole subject of that verb. (And the same goes for I/me and so on.)

Cheseter said:

... would it be better to say —and maybe we too—?

Click to expand...

I think the answer to that is: Yes, but ...

Certainly it’s common practice, in casual speech, to use an object pronoun where technically a subject pronoun is required — e.g. "me and my best friend (instead of my best friend and I) were born on the same day". But in the OP sentence, that usage grates, in my view. However, correctly using the subject pronoun we, as the subject of work, might sound a bit twee, so I’d suggest rephrasing it.

It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems — and maybe us too — work. :cross:
It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems — and maybe we too — work. :tick::thumbsdown:
It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems work, and maybe how we do too. :tick::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thank you both for your quick responses.
The thing is I am trying to get my head around the 'me too' dilema because of this sentence and... I've found a pretty reasonable theoretical claim: What is elliptic is not 'and maybe we [work] too' but 'and maybe [this applies to] us too'

This would explain the grammaticality of the expression 'me too' from its roots. However, it's just impossible to prove, as ellipsis erases the syntactic context this lexicalised expression ever had, so... it leaves me with little theoretical support. Although I love it as a pragmatic answer because my intuition leads me that way, it's based on interpretation more than historical research.

So my question goes back to: What's more natural to you? What prevails? The fact that 'we too' sounds already odd to most ears? Or the fact that you see 'work' on that sentence you can't but need to have 'we' there to create agency on it?

I think your intuition is right, probably "us too" derives - on some level - from "[this applies to] us too."

To me the most unnatural thing is the parenthesis in the middle of the sentence. This would be better:

"It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems work - and maybe us too." This is very casual and many people would still object to the use of "us" here. So I think @lingobingo's suggestion is the best:

"It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems work, and maybe how we do too."

In actual practice, we try to avoid constructions with potential awkwardness and uncertain grammaticality.

I'm not sure it's helpful to refer to "us" as the "object pronoun" in this particular usage. The function of "us" here is perhaps better described as the emphatic or tonic or disjunctive or stressed personal pronoun which exists in French, and is exemplified by Miss Piggy (in 'The Muppets') who asks rhetorically: "Pretentious? Moi?"

That’s fine as a generalisation, but in this case, I think the fact that it’s an object pronoun is the very reason for its not being idiomatic. It’s far too close, perhaps especially when spoken rather than written, to saying that "us" work that way too.


This is very different from e.g. "me and him are in the same class", where those pronouns are very clearly the subject of the verb (but us could definitely not replace them).

Cheseter said:

It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems —and maybe us too— work.

Click to expand...

I agree with Lingo (#3), and my preference is a slight variation on his/hers:
It’s the perfect metaphor for how these systems work, and maybe how we work too.

In my opinion, the original sentence is clunky.