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Which Pronoun is Correct: I or
Me? |
On March 5, Jazmine Hughes wrote in a New York Times
blog,
“Recently, at an IRL party — that is, a party that takes
place ‘in real life,’ as opposed to where I generally
live, which is on the Internet — a guest asked a friend
and I how we met.”
The sentence includes a common error I have been seeing
and hearing more and more often lately.
The error is using the subject pronoun “I” when the
object pronoun “me” should be used.
Even President Obama can be heard using “I” for the
object of a sentence. At his first press conference, on
November 7, 2008, he spoke about being invited to tour
the White House. “Well, President Bush graciously
invited Michelle and I to -- to meet with him and First
Lady Laura Bush.”
The rule for object pronouns
English has eight subject pronouns: I, you, he, she, it,
we, you and they. Subject pronouns show the actor in a
sentence. For example, in the sentence “I speak
English,” “I” is the actor.
English also has eight object pronouns: me, you, him,
her, it, us, you and them. We use an object pronoun to
show the receiver of the action in a sentence, as in
“She gave the book to me.” In that sentence, “me” is the
receiver.
People often confuse subject pronouns and object
pronouns in sentences with two receivers.
Take the sentence “President Obama gave an award to my
brother and me.” We can easily see the need for an
object pronoun because of the preposition “to.”
But some sentences do not have prepositions, as in “Obama
asked my brother and me some questions.” The sentence
still needs the object pronoun “me.”
However, some people might want to say “Obama asked my
brother and I some questions.” You know that sentence
has a grammar error because “I” is not an object
pronoun.
Why people say “I” instead of
“me”
I think the confusion about “I” and “me” comes from
instruction we get as children: to be polite. When we
mention ourselves and another person in a sentence, we
are told to put the other person first.
For example, we might be reminded to say, “My brother
and I went to the White House.” Saying “I and my brother
went to the White House” is grammatically correct but
would sound impolite, or rude.
So, English speakers who are faced with two people in
the object position in a sentence often grab for the
phrase “someone and I.” They do not notice the phrase is
grammatically incorrect. It just sounds more polite.
Another theory about the “I” or “me” error comes from a
2009 New York Times article “The I’s Have It.”
Writers Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman guess
that people correct children who use “me” instead of “I”
so much, the children grow up using “I” even when it is
wrong. They explain the term for this linguistic
phenomenon is “hypercorrection.”
Back to Ms. Hughes, her party and the New York Times
blog. Her sentence should be re-written as “…a guest
asked a friend and me how we met.” Shortly after I
called the error to the newspaper's attention, the
sentence was corrected in this way.
A simple way to check for the correct pronoun in a case
like this is mentally to eliminate the second person.
Try saying in your head “A guest asked me how we met,”
or, “A guest asked a friend how we met.” That simple
check makes choosing the correct pronoun easier.
Now you will always know the right pronoun to use – take
it from me!
I’m Jill Robbins.
Dr. Jill Robbins wrote this story for VOA Learning
English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. |
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