Phoebe’s dialog is twice wrong and should be “your being envious,” NOT “you being jealous.”First, “jealousy” is “envy” complicated with unrequited/lustful romantic rivalry. I might envy you your annual salary, but I am jealous of your relationship with a person I have a crush on.Marigold Heavenly Nostrils has no unrequited/lustful romantic interest in Phoebe’s Christmas presents.Second, the issue is “being envious/jealous.” “[B]eing” is a gerund, so it requires an adjective, not a pronoun, as a modifier, and, yes, gerunds ARE covered by the fourth grade. Since Phoebe’s only nine and in the fourth grade, she’s intelligent enough to have learned and grasped the correct use of gerunds. Ms Simpson knows better and should set a better example for all the kids who read her strip. There’s nothing wrong and a lot right about Ms Simpson’s using her strip to bolster schoolchildren’s English skills.
Phoebe’s dialog is twice wrong and should be “your being envious,” NOT “you being jealous.”First, “jealousy” is “envy” complicated with unrequited/lustful romantic rivalry. I might envy you your annual salary, but I am jealous of your relationship with a person I have a crush on.Marigold Heavenly Nostrils has no unrequited/lustful romantic interest in Phoebe’s Christmas presents.Second, the issue is “being envious/jealous.” “[B]eing” is a gerund, so it requires an adjective, not a pronoun, as a modifier, and, yes, gerunds ARE covered by the fourth grade. Since Phoebe’s only nine and in the fourth grade, she’s intelligent enough to have learned and grasped the correct use of gerunds. Ms Simpson knows better and should set a better example for all the kids who read her strip. There’s nothing wrong and a lot right about Ms Simpson’s using her strip to bolster schoolchildren’s English skills.