I am not a linguist and I am not particularly well-versed in linguistic theory. I do have a decent grasp of English grammar and believe that many grammatical mistakes are of almost no consequence. Although they might subtly depreciate the (mis)speaker’s reputation, grammatical mistakes generally do not detract from the speaker’s comprehensibility.
On a recent episode of Modern Family, Claire’s family was chiding her for using the phrase “me likey,” when referring to something she likes. That reminded me of how frequently I hear misuse of “I” and “me.”
Both are first person pronouns. “I” is subjective, meaning it is the subject of a verb. The subject performs the action of a verb, as in: I went to a movie. “Me” is objective, meaning it is the object of a verb or preposition. The object receives the action of the verb, as in: Phil gave me a book.
“Me” is almost never used alone in the subjective. For instance, I have never heard anybody say: me went to a movie, unless intentionally, like Claire. But if another person is involved, if Gloria also went to the movie, a speaker will often say: Gloria and me went to the movie. There is no confusion about who went to the movie, but why “me” instead of the correct “I?”
Similarly, nobody and I mean nobody says: Phil gave the book to I. Not once in my life have I heard or read that construction. But if another person is involved, a speaker will often say: Phil gave the book to Gloria and I. Why does using a compound subject or object lead to using the wrong pronoun?
I don’t have an answer. Me hopes one of you does and that you will share it with the gang and I.
“Phil gave the book to Gloria and I,”
“Gloria and me went to the movies”,
As a non-fiction author (in some circles, best-selling) who really sells content vs. linguistics, I prefer to keep it simple.
Best practice is to use the sentence without the noun Gloria.
“Phil gave the book to me”
“I went to the movies”
Now add Gloria back into the sentence.
And while I’m guessing most of your blog audience is married, imagine being single on a dating site. The misuse of sentence structure and poor spelling are rampant. It’s quite amusing sometimes…
Simple is best. In baseball too.
Just scanned my comment and realized I use “are rampant” should be “is rampant”. Linguistics is not easy, especially when you are writing on the fly…
I think you got it right the first time. You have two subjects the misuse of sentence structure and (presumably “the use of”) poor spelling, and this requires are, not is.
Next up:
Why doesn’t English have different words for inclusive and exclusive “or”?
Phenomenon vs. phenomena: Does the latter just sound more singular because the article “a” is singular?
The date when, “I couldn’t care less,” became, “I could care less.”
Which comes first: the period or the quotation mark?
The over/under on the date when “iconic” will become passe.
Is the use of “that” instead of “who” in reference to human beings (as in, “the player that hit the first home run for the Cincinnati Base Ball Club”) really more common in the Midwest?
Misused apostrophes and quotation marks. (Spotted in front of a Glasgow hotel two weeks ago: “Hot pizza’s and drink, 6 pounds.” The night desk clerk, a college student, estimated he’d seen it several hundred times without noticing. I didn’t have the heart to ask for his major.)
Why one shouldn’t be corrected for saying, “Good,” in response to, “How are you?”
For better or worse, I have struck a nerve. I’m thinking for better, but I’m not committed to it just yet.
At college, the superintendent of our dorm used apostrophes with abandon. They were almost always in the wrong place. Like Charlie, we let it go. There was nothing to be gain’ed.
Okay, Bob, I paid 100k to educate a linguist (Lisa’s major at U Mass) so now you get some well paid for schooling! Take over, Lisa!
Right. Firstly, “subjective” is used to refer to a verbal mood and “objective” is a political term rather than a linguistic term. The words for which you are looking are “nominative” and “accusative”. As to why the two cases are mixed up when the subject or object is plural, I think that the answer is two fold. First to say that it’s plurality that causes mistakes is misleading, since people rarely mix up “we” and “us”, even on purpose. What causes the mistakes is having compound subjects and objects. Using the accusative instead of the nominative, as in “Gloria and me went to the movies”, is most likely caused by only extending the nominative case to one element. Since English only displays nominative case on pronouns, the name “Gloria” is the same whether it’s in nominative or not. Since “me” is the default form of the first person singular pronoun in English, if the nominative case is put on “Gloria”, then “me” doesn’t get turned into “I” and it doesn’t sound particularly unnatural because “Gloria” is a viable subject. When mistakes are made in applying nominative case to objects instead of accusative case, such as in “Phil gave the book to Gloria and I,” my personal opinion is that it’s overcompensation. People get corrected so often to say “Gloria and I” instead of “Gloria and me” without fully understanding why that they tend to correct themselves in cases where it is, in fact, correct to say “Gloria and me.” Of course if you asked a dozen linguists this question, you’d probably get a dozen different answers. I hope this sheds some light on the matter none-the-less.
Finally found someone to add to my staff.
This is a fantastic response. Well worth the 100k.
Easy for us to say.
This is one of my pet goddamned peeves. Drives me crazy. I can’t stand it when people use I as the object of a verb. Right up there with “like I said”. As I said, totally wrong. Thanks!
Chinese is way easier- there’s only one word for “me” and “I”!