Me or I

Sam C wrote:

sorry if my question wasn't clear.  the advice was When used as the subject, use "I,"  whether you have another person as part of the subject or not. i wondered why? sam

In most cases, it's impossible to say why a particular word (i.e. a particular sound) has a particular function in a language. For instance, why do the different sounds "ego", "ich", "je", "io", "yo", and "I" signify "the person speaking, as the subject of the verb" in different languages? We might postulate a common root, thirty thousand years ago – a "person speaking" noise – but that doesn't tell us why the noise isn't "suitcase" or "harlequin" instead.

All we can say is that "this particular noise does have this particular function, in this particular language". We can then add that another noise, which usually has a different function – "me" – is sometimes substituted for the first noise, by some speakers, in some situations (e.g. your "me and Bill are going to the shops").

If enough speakers insisted on using the second noise instead of the first noise, the first noise would become obsolete (cf. "thou"). However, there is usually some resistance to such change, as it's more trouble for most speakers to replace word A, which usually has function X, with word B, which usually has function Y, than simply to use word A for X and word B for Y.

That's not to say that the substitution in this instance ("me" for "I") might not have its own function, which some speakers find useful. For instance, in BrE at least, "I" has acquired a slightly "overbearing" air, in some contexts (cf. the Queen's "My husband and I"). By fronting "me" in place of "I", in "me and Bill...", for instance, perhaps the speaker unconsciously puts himself in the background: perhaps "Bill and I" would seem too Queenly, to some speakers.

(The problem for non-native speakers, though, is that native speakers are very tolerant of each other's grammatical slips – in fact, most people don't notice them – but immediately notice if those grammatical slips are combined with a foreign accent.)

<End of pontification.>

MrP

Hi, I remember my old English teacher Mr Sedgewick's way of deciding it it should be "Me" or "I"

He said to take the second person out of the sentence, use the word you'd use for you in the sentence...

i.e. "I am going to the shop"

put the other person back into the sentence and there you have it.....

"I am going to the shop"......."Mom and I are going to the shop".

"It was left to me to go to the shop".... "It was left to Mom and me to go to the shop"

hope this helps............

p.s. Watch the BBC TV news broadcasts, they get it right every time

Grammar Geek wrote:

Yikes! I'm sorry, but "Me and mom" as the subject is NOT acceptable. You will sound like an overly-enthusiastic 8-year-old boy if you say "Me and mom" while speaking...

Hi,
really? I learned that it's quite common, even though prescriptive grammar tells you not to use it. I also hear it pretty often, from 40-year-olds too, not from 8-year-olds. What is not used is "Mom and me" as a subject ("me" doesn't come first), and "I and mom" ("I" doesn't come last). I think I use "me" in compound subjects more often than "I", actually ---> "Me and Kelly needed some money, so we took yours"
Are you sure I'd never catch you using "me" as subject, even if I recorded everything you said on tape for a month?

MrPedantic wrote:

The problem for non-native speakers, though, is that native speakers are very tolerant of each other's grammatical slips – in fact, most people don't notice them – but immediately notice if those grammatical slips are combined with a foreign accent.

I guess that's because with a native those slips usually form the individual's identity (upbringing, social background, etc) whereas with a non-native they do not have that significance and hence just show as erroneous. What sounds even worse though is when a non-native deliberately uses constructions that he knows are erroneous prescriptively in an attempt to take on such an identity.