In a movie, I heard a character say:" I now pronounce you Marry and Joe.", and his friend said: " I now pronounce me very impressed, but I'm not getting those kinds of offers".
Shouldn't he say " I now pronounce that I'm very impressed"?
Did I ever get him right?
Please elaborate
Context: Actors from Hollywood (or "Hollywoo," as the case may be) are talking. If I remember right they are married but are breaking up. From this transcript:
Jessica Biel: This podunk benefit is below us. I'm about to be in what I've been told is a very important gay rights movie, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Mr. Peanutbutter: I now pronounce me very impressed, but I'm not getting those kinds of offers.
"I now pronounce you man and wife" is a phrase associated with the traditional wedding ceremony; the officiant says it at the end, declaring that the couple are now married. "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" is a silly movie title based on that phrase, with Chuck and Larry marrying each other.
Mr. Peanutbutter makes a funny statement based on that movie title: he "pronounces himself" (declares that he is) "very impressed" with the fact that she got asked to be in such a big movie, but he has not been getting similarly large offers, and so he doesn't feel like the benefit is "below him."
To be grammatically correct he should have used the reflexive pronoun and said "I now pronounce myself very impressed" but the sentence is not really good usage either way. It is just a play on words, something that Bojack Horseman is known for.
The syntax here, since no one bothered to explain it, is
I pronounce [accusative pronoun] [complement]
This is one of the few cases where you can just drop the "to be" entirely, and it basically only works because it's a formal construction. For a usage that could actually be heard in regular conversation:
I pronounce them dead of natural causes.
You can also use it with any other verb of belief:
Nobody has ever managed to prove or disprove that P ≠ NP, but I believe it true.
When a couple get married, it's conventional in English for the minister or the judge or whoever is performing the wedding to say, "I now pronounce you man and wife" or "I now pronounce you husband and wife". That is, he is saying that he pronounces, that is, declares, that these two people are now married.
I'm not sure what was meant by "I now pronounce you Mary and Joe." It sounds like either a variation on the usual announcement of a marriage, or perhaps making some joke comparing these people to a married couple.
The other person saying, "I now pronounce me very impressed" is making a joke keying off of the standard marriage announcement. He's saying it about himself, so instead of "I now pronounce you ..." he says "I now pronounce me ..." And obviously instead of "husband and wife" he says "very impressed".
Both the original, "I now pronounce you husband and wife", and the joke, "I now pronounce me", are not conventional modern grammar. I don't know if that was accepted grammar at one time or if it was always a stylized way of speaking. A full grammatically correct sentence would be, "I know pronounce that you are husband and wife." But we all know what it means. Even if it wasn't an accepted formula I don't think it would be hard to figure it out.
