Your teacher always told you to say \u201cso and so and I\u201d instead of \u201cme and so and so\u201d. This is correct (most of the time), but did they explain why? It is often a point of confusion for most people because while teachers usually remember to teach that, they often do not explain the reason for it, which leaves people not understanding, which in turn can lead to problems such as using it incorrectly or not at all.<\/p>\n
Many people think (and some are even taught!) that it is just more polite to put the other person first but that is NOT the reason. There is a legitimate grammatical reason.<\/p>\n
In a proper English sentence, the first-person singular pronoun I<\/em> is used where speaker is the subject<\/strong> of the sentence. That is, when the person is the one doing something. When the person is the object<\/strong> in the sentence, me<\/em> is used instead. This is when the person is having something done to them. Examples of the former include I went there<\/em> and I didn\u2019t know what it was<\/em>. Examples of the latter include He gave it to me<\/em>, They helped me<\/em>, and It happened to me too<\/em>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s great, but there is a much easier and faster way to determine whether a given sentence is grammatically correct. Since \u201cblah and I\u201d or \u201cme and blah\u201d are conjunctions (they combine two objects), you can break it down to its constituent parts to see if it still works. This is a simple method to show the proper usage. When do you use \u201c\u2026and I\u201d and when do you use \u201c\u2026and me \/ me and\u2026\u201d? It\u2019s simple; just separate the compound sentence by rewriting it with each subject, or object as the case may be, then test the sentences with each individually.<\/p>\n For example: \u201cBob and I saw the movie\u201d<\/em> becomes \u201cBob saw the movie\u201d<\/em> and \u201cI saw the movie\u201d<\/em>. Both of those work fine, and so the sentence is fine as is.<\/p>\n What about \u201cMe and Bob saw the movie\u201d<\/em> (or \u201cBob and me saw the movie\u201d<\/em>)? They become \u201cBob saw the movie\u201d<\/em> and \u201cMe saw the movie\u201d<\/em>. Clearly, \u201cMe saw the movie\u201d<\/em> is incorrect and so should be changed to \u201cBob and I\u201d.<\/p>\n That is the reason you say \u201cBob and I\u201d. Technically, you could also say \u201cI and Bob\u201d in a sentence like this, but most people would agree that it sounds and feels pretty awkward: \u201cI and Bob saw the movie\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n However, you do not always use \u201c\u2026and I\u201d. For example, \u201cYou saw Bob and I\u201d<\/em> is incorrect because breaking it down becomes \u201cYou saw Bob\u201d<\/em> which is fine and \u201cYou saw I\u201d<\/em> which is wrong. The correct sentence would be \u201cYou saw Bob and me\u201d<\/em> or \u201cYou saw me and Bob\u201d<\/em>. This breaks down to \u201cYou saw Bob\u201d<\/em> and \u201cYou saw me\u201d<\/em> which is correct. At this point, the order of the subjects is up to the writer. Both \u201cYou saw Bob and me\u201d<\/em> and \u201cYou saw me and Bob\u201d<\/em> are valid, and there are no official rules to their order.<\/p>\n One hiccup comes in the form of the possessive personal pronoun, namely \u201cmy\u201d or \u201cmine\u201d. This does not really work in the same way, though it is somewhat easy to figure out by simply trying the different forms. It would be \u201cHis any my cars were parked\u201d<\/em> as opposed to \u201cHis and mine cars were parked\u201d<\/em> (alternately, though somewhat awkwardly, \u201cMy and his cars were parked\u201d<\/em> instead of \u201cMine and his cars were parked\u201d<\/em>). Similarly, \u201cThey liked his and my food\u201d<\/em> is correct where \u201cThe liked his and mine food\u201d<\/em> is not. Where \u201cmine\u201d is correct, it is rarely combined due to its usage: \u201cit was mine and his\u201d<\/em> (or \u201cit was his and mine\u201d<\/em>) is usually just written as \u201cit was ours\u201d<\/em>. Note, this can also be applied to the other forms as well: \u201cWe saw the movie\u201d<\/em>, \u201cYou saw us\u201d<\/em>, \u201cOur cars were parked\u201d<\/em>, and \u201cThey liked our food\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n Your teacher always told you to say \u201cso and so and I\u201d instead of \u201cme and so and so\u201d. This is correct (most of the time), but did they explain why? It is often a point of confusion for most people because while teachers usually remember to teach that, they often do not explain the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,40],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grammar","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synetech.ddns.net\/blogs\/smarticles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}