Me, I, and why you all piss me off.

[evilbutterfly]

Every time I see me or I used improperly, I want to shoot people. For some reason, "and I" seems to be a common correction to a common problem that has become such a common ailment that people are now saying "and I" when they need to say "me and" instead. It pisses me off because nobody would make the mistake if everybody hadn't started making the correction a big deal. Let me give you some examples and then show you why things are the way they are:

Wrong:
Me and mom went to the store.
Right:
Mom and I went to the store.
Wrong:
Here is a picture of Dad and I.
Right:
Here is a picture of me and Dad.


But wait, eb, you use "me and Dad" and said it was right! THAT CAN'T BE! Well stfu, yes it can! Let me teach you an easy little trick that will solve all your problems and end all the confusion with me and I. First look at the sentence, and take away the other person. So, instead of talking about "me and Mom" or "Mom and I" just talk about "me" or "I." Now, let's look at those sentences again, without Mom or Dad.

Wrong:
Me went to the store.
Right:
I went to the store.
Wrong:
Here is a picture of I.
Right:
Here is a picture of me.

Read those out loud. Notice how some of them sound utterly retarded, whereas the others sound just fine. Now, go back to any time you've ever used me and I with any other person, and remove the other person from the sentence. Now, laugh at yourself for sounding retarded, and cry because you fail at life and at simple grammar.

I'm sure Squeek could give you a more proper reasoning for why one or the other is wrong, because one is a noun and the other a...some other part of speech, but you guys don't listen to Squeek when he corrects you because he's overly technical and somewhat annoying.

PS: This is not sticky fishing, this is me being pissed off and not wanting to postwhore every thread with "me, not I, dumbass" because I really wouldn't mind doing that. It seriously pisses me off. D=<

[ThEclipse]

The quick brown fox jumped over the silver moon.

[Afrobean]

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890

[chickendude]

me is an object pronoun
I is a subject pronoun

when you are in the SUBJECT of the sentence, use I
when you are in the PREDICATE part of the sentence (where direct objects go) use me

thats the grammar nazi way of putting it

Another problem that makes me cringe is when people use myself instead of I'
ex.
Email joe or myself with your entry for the contest
WRONG
Email joe or me with your entry for the contest
RIGHT

I hate reflexive pronoun errors >_>

[yo-shimaro]

grammar is for blokes

[QreepyBORIS]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 1234567890

.ttf

[ckj846]

Originally Posted by yo-shimaro

grammar is for blokes

....
O_o

[Tasuke]

This is very helpful information, eb. But the only people that will read this and actually care, are the people that already know. I already know, and have known "your little rule" since the third grade. Another thing i learned around the third grade is that people are retarded. just let them be idiots and just ignore them.

[GuidoHunter]

I remember when I would use some of those incorrect sentences just because they sounded better and more "normal". Man, do they ever sound so awkward that I will never utter them again, now...

Just another point of note since it's kind of on-topic: Use the subjective form of a pronoun after any form of the verb "to be". If you pick up the phone and the other person asks if he or she could speak with [your name], you respond, "This is he/she." This rule definitely makes sentences sound weird, but they'd be correct.

By the way, when did our grammar topic get taken down?

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Dimitri13]

Originally Posted by yo-shimaro

grammar is for blokes

Silly Englishman, grammar is for people!

[Tokzic]

Flashback to Grade 6 grammar.

The reason that is, EB, is because "Dad and I" is the subject. When the subject comes before the verb, then it stays in the subjective form. In that second sentence, it's no longer the object - "picture" is. However, when you bust out the preposition "of me and Dad" you have to turn it to objective form. You know, like this:

I - me
he - him
she - her
we - us
they - them
etc.

I actually hate grammar. My grammar was perfect in grade 4, back when I didn't know the meaning of grammar.

[RisqR2]

Me and my friend read over this topic and don't understand anything about it.

[Squeek]

By the way, when did our grammar topic get taken down?

I hardly noticed it myself, but I didn't care about the reply to that question.

Originally Posted by Guido

Okay, let me start by discussing the simple sentence structure of the English language. We have an SVO system in English, that is to say, a simple sentence will begin with a subject, then have a conjugated verb which may or may not be followed by an object (Japanese, by contrast, has an SOV system).

The sentence "I hit the ball" has those three parts. "I" is the subject, "hit" is the verb, and "the ball" is the object.

I have a chain of logic with this, so please bear with me; I know y'all aren't first graders.

Now, when it comes to people and the words that represent them, there are often two different words that represent the same thing. Such words are I/me, we/us, he/him, she/her, and they/them. Obviously, these words, although they represent the same things in their respective pairs, cannot be used interchangeably, so there must be a difference.

That difference is that the first word in each pair is the subjective form, and the second is the objective form. As you may have guessed, the subjective form is used when the idea represented by the word is the subject of the sentence, and the object is used when the idea is the object.

Example: I hit the ball. The ball hit me.

This is why it's incorrect to answer a ringing phone and, upon the other end asking for you, say, "This is him." You should, in fact, say, "This is he." Also, you can now understand why it's so wrong use the common phrase in its original form of, "Woe is me."

Read: Woe is I, by Patricia T. O'Conner.

Now that that's been said, we're now ready to cover the differences between "who" and "whom."

Simply put, "who" is subjective and "whom" is objective. But there is one more thing I need to add. When you have a prepositional phrase (a preposition followed by a noun or a noun phrase), the noun part is considered the object of the preposition. Because of this, one of those personal subjects will always take the objective form when it follows a preposition, as will whom. This also applies to whoever and whomever.

However, the object of a preposition can be an entire clause (a phrase with both a subject and a verb). Because of this, you can have the subjective form of a word following a preposition, as in the sentence, "He was before whoever was last." Ordinarily, you would use the objective form because "before" is a preposition, like when you say, "He was before me," but since the object of the preposition is a clause you need a subject, like in, "He left before I arrived."

This leads me to a VERY common grammatical error regarding comparisons.

WRONG: You are better than me at Stepmania.
Whenever you use "than" for comparisons, you need to realize that you will often leave out a verb that is understood.
RIGHT: You are better than I at Stepmania.
It is understood that you are saying "You are better than I am at Stepmania, but just because you don't say it doesn't mean it's not there. Just think: you wouldn't say, "You are better than me am at Stepmania," would you?

The last thing I want to cover is regarding prepositions. Technically, it is illegal (in the grammar sense) to end a sentence with a preposition. Now, this is one of the less-respected rules simply because being completely compliant with it can make for some extremely awkward sentences, and sometimes even I can't figure out how they should be worded. However, most of the time they make sentences look much better.

For example:
WRONG: She is the one I gave the present to.
RIGHT: She is the one to whom I gave the present.

If you pay attention to this rule, you'll start to notice how ugly the former sentence looks and sounds. Of course, there are some sentences which are just obscene even though they are correct. If I can think of one some time I'll put it up here. As a closing point, I'll leave y'all with a relevant quote:

"Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put!" --Winston Churchill

And thus I end my second entry.

--Guido

That helps.

~Squeek

[Jam930]

Originally Posted by evilbutterfly

I'm sure Squeek could give you a more proper reasoning for why one or the other is

Is that proper grammar?

I'm not really that great with grammar, but that just sounded kinda weird to me.

Seems like it would be "could give you a more proper reason" or "could give you more proper reasoning".

[xiron]

My English teacher is like obsessed with grammar, so I knew most of this already.

[Jam930]

Originally Posted by xiron

My English teacher is like obsessed with grammar,

I'm shocked.

[hiyasucka]

another thing that makes me laugh is when people say "me too"
think about it
Wrong:
"I want to go to the park."
"Me too want to go to the park."
Right:
"I want to go to the park."
"I too want to go to the park."

Therefore the phrase "me too" is actually improper.
If you would like to express your agreeance with whatever is being said, you should say "I too."
This sounds wierd, however it is proper grammar.

[Jam930]

...not true.


What you said is really bothering me.
What you said is really bothering me too.

Or just "me too." for short.

That's what "me too" is.


People say, "I too" but they follow up with the rest of the sentence... because "I too" only really works at the beginning of a sentence. =/

[stretchypanda]

I'm pretty sure "and me" would still follow the noun.

"Here is a picture of my dad and me." (Unless, of course, you are indicating that you are on the left in the picture and your dad is on the right.)
"She gave Lucius and me a ride."

[xiron]

Originally Posted by Jam930

I'm shocked.

I meant that she is more obsessed with grammar than other teachers I've had. Literally all we do in there is grammar. Here's how our six weeks goes:
Day 1 - Assigns book, tells us when test is. Then some grammar.
Day 2 through 29 - Grammar
Day 30 - Test on book.