From the lyrics to Another Brick in the Wall:
What is the grammatical construct in leave us kids alone or leave them kids alone?
Teachers leave them kids alone.
Hey teacher leave us kids alone
Is it short for leave them, the kids, alone and leave us, the kids, alone, respectively? I have seen the construct with them [noun] in other contexts, too, but can't find examples as it's hard to google.
Is this proper English? Are there phrases with a similar grammatical construct?
Best Answer
The leave them kids alone part is definitely ungrammatical, as is the first chorus line We Don't Need No Education (the former should be those kids, and the latter uses the much-reviled double negative).
Per this answer on a related ELU question, using "them" as an "article" is non-standard (but not uncommon in speech, particularly with the less well-educated, or in "facetious" usages).
There's nothing ungrammatical about leave us kids alone - if there were, you wouldn't expect to see written references to things that might help us writers, for example.
In such constructions, the [optional] "class/category name" after "us" applies to all of us - it doesn't select kids or writers from a larger group. The context inherently implies that "we" are all kids, writers, whatever.