Using a comma to identify an appositive and a apostrophe to show ownership in the same sentence.

My mother in law, Barbara, gave me this set of pots and pans.

Yes, sounds much better but I need to include my husband's name.

...........gave Merritt and I this set of.....

...........gave my husband Merritt and I this set of.....

maybe?

Yes, the first one...perfect! Thank you..

You're welcome.

My husband Merritt's mom, Barbara, gave me this set of pots and pans.

Mookbark

...and me!

I would say a, not this, set of pots and pans unless you intend including a picture of said pots and pans.

Regard you and Merritt as a unit in place of the awkward looking Merritt and me which could imply two sets of dishes were received as gifts -

Barbara, my mother in law, gave Merritt and I a set of her mother's dishes. -and it'll get by unnoticed.

Wrong, an easy way to differentiate between me and I is to remove the other person from the sentence.

Barbara, my mother in law, gave I a set of..... is clearly wrong.

Barbara, my mother in law, gave me a set of..... is right. So,

Barbara, my mother in law, gave Merritt and I a set of.... is wrong

Barbara, my mother in law, gave Merritt and me a set of.... is right.

Yup.

That's a worthwhile point, Iz. But it could be that the pots and pans are being physically displayed. But even if they weren't being displayed THIS could be used to illustrate disdain.

Izzy and Contrex are of the impression that you don't know much about English, Lordy.

Sounds right to me.

Homework.

Hi you beautiful babes. Want some commas?

John 3:16

Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Izzy the putz: Wrong, an easy way to differentiate between me and I is to remove the other person from the sentence.

Barbara, my mother in law, gave I a set of..... is clearly wrong.


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http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

Grammar Puss

...

Turning to the Democrats, Safire gets on Bill Clinton's case, as he puts it, for asking voters to "give Al Gore and I a chance to bring America back." No one would say [give I a break], because the indirect object of [give] must have objective case. So it should be [give Al Gore and me a chance.]

Probably no "grammatical error" has received as much scorn as "misuse" of pronoun case inside conjunctions (phrases with two parts joined by [and] or [or]). What teenager has not been corrected for saying [Me and Jennifer are going to the mall]? The standard story is that the object pronoun [me] does not belong in subject position -- no one would say [Me is going to the mall] -- so it should be [Jennifer and I]. People tend to misremember the advice as "When in doubt, say 'so-and-so and I', not 'so-and-so and me'," so they unthinkingly overapply it, resulting in hyper-corrected solecisms like [give Al Gore and I a chance] and the even more despised [between you and I].

But if the person on the street is so good at avoiding [Me is going] and [Give I a break], and even former Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors can't seem to avoid [Me and Jennifer are going] and [Give Al and I a chance], might it not be the mavens that misunderstand English grammar, not the speakers? The mavens' case about case rests on one assumption: if an entire conjunction phrase has a grammatical feature like subject case, every word inside that phrase has to have that grammatical feature, too. But that is just false.

[Jennifer] is singular; you say [Jennifer is], not [Jennifer are]. The pronoun [She] is singular; you say [She is], not [She are]. But the conjunction [She and Jennifer] is not singular, it's plural; you say [She and Jennifer are], not [She and Jennifer is.] So a conjunction can have a different grammatical number from the pronouns inside it. Why, then, must it have the same grammatical [case] as the pronouns inside it? The answer is that it need not. A conjunction is just not grammatically equivalent to any of its parts. If John and Marsha met, it does not mean that John met and that Marsha met. If voters give Clinton and Gore a chance, they are not giving Gore his own chance, added on to the chance they are giving Clinton; they are giving the entire ticket a chance. So just because [Al Gore and I] is an object that requires object case, it does not mean that is an object that requires object case. By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants.

Don't mention it, Lordy.