I swear that I was taught in school that when you’re referring to yourself and another person that you should refer to yourself as if the other person were not a factor. Thus, for example, if my friends Abe and Ben went to the store, I would say
“Abe and Ben and I went to the store”
or
“They and I went to the store”
or, referring to Abe or Ben singularly, I would say
“He and I went to the store”
because, if I were to omit Abe and Ben, I would say
“I went to the store”.
Increasingly, however, I am hearing the word “and me” or “me and” used instead in conversation and in movies/television, by real people or by fictional characters who are fairly well educated:
“Me and him went to the store”
“He and me went to the store”
even though one would never say “Me went to the store” unless you were on an errand to return a Precious or buy Queen Amidala a Slurpee.
Has this rule of grammar changed, or was it never a rule to begin with, or is it one of those “some say one/some say the other” things?
It is a common grammatical error, but I have noticed no sign of it becoming more common lately: if anything, the reverse. Indeed, according to many authorities, “Me went to the store” was almost universally used, and considered correct, in the paleolithic era.
Me is okay in casual conversation. When the people are the object, never use I. It’s a hypercorrection and makes you look stupid: “Rose spent the day with Jake and I.” I am hearing this more and more lately.
Thereagain, the correct way is as if Jake’s not part of the equation: you wouldn’t say “Rose spent the day with I”. I’m hearing this one a lot too, especially in TV/movies.
Obviously, we often allow more leeway for things like this in spoken or informal written usage than we do in more formal settings. If one of my students said “Him and me went to see the movie” or “She came to the movie with Joe and I,” in casual conversation with me, i probably wouldn’t correct the error, but if they made the same error in an essay, i would correct it.
The funny thing is that people often use “I” instead of “me” as an object pronoun because they think it sounds more educated, or more formal. They think that saying “He came in the car with Rose and I” sounds more educated than “He came in the car with Rose and me.” It’s the latter, however, that is better grammar.
The one that really gets me these days is the incredible overuse of the reflexive pronoun “myself.” People will say things like, “Can you give it to myself?” or “He’s going to stay with John and myself.” I think that this usage is also often a result of trying to sound more educated or more formal, but it just makes me cringe.
Rose is on trial for murder. The judge asks you where she was that day. Jake wasn’t there. Is it: “Rose spent the day with me,” or “Rose spent the day with I,”?*
WTF is the ruling on that quote question mark cluster fuck?
Sampiro, you are correct, and no, the rule hasn’t changed. Others are making it more complicated than it needs to be. “I” if you are the subject; “me” if you are the object, as already stated. If the sentence refers to more than one person, separate them out and it becomes obvious.
The first one. If you remove one of the two subjects, you get:
“I am going to be a good friend.”
or
“Me am going to be a good friend.”
It becomes extremely obvious which one is correct.
No, they don’t. Objects usually come after the main verb. Object clauses may contain a preposition before the relevant noun or pronoun, but they equally well may not: e.g., “She kissed me passionately,” or “He told me all about it.”
It is a grammatically incorrect sentence (from a prescriptivist view).
Pinker argues against prescriptivism as a mechanism for “correcting” bad grammar.
Put Pinker and a grammar question together, and you have the beginnings of the same argument we have every time a reader here wants to know what is “correct.”
Make it easy: just check with me when you are not sure if a prescriptive rule is worthwhile or simply fodder for lesser pedants.
Grammar rules should focus on clarity of communication. Following them has a secondary benefit of demonstrating an ability to learn. Deciding which rules are worth following is my job.
If I am unavailable, try a common-sense approach here that still more or less pleads a prescriptivist approach to prevent language from sinking to the level of the least-capable.
Amen. However I think the origin of the usage is incompetence. The speaker is unsure whether or not to use “me.” And if Susie went to the store with him and me, the speaker is really anxious over what to use…
