"Me" versus "I"

[Goodheart]

Of course there are grammar rules as to which is proper within a sentence, but after hearing several instances of misuse on TV this morning I'm becoming convinced that within the next few years the rules will be tossed out and the two words will become acceptably interchangeable everywhere.

It seems to me that in most cases where "I" is used improperly the speaker wants to sound more educated than he really is.... for example, "Merry Christmas from Betty and I" or "Between you and I, the Celtics are the better team." In the old days those would have made one's ears bleed, but no more.

[LuckyCharms]

1. Whose Betty?

[MineralMan]

5. It's not my Betty.

Of that I'm certain. My Betty, whose name is actually Kim, comes on with the news every morning in our house. She's very careful with her use of English. I call her Betty, because she reminds me of the Betty in the Archie comics.

[LuckyCharms]

18. When I was young in the 60's...

I collected Archie comics. My parents dealt in antiques, and occasionally they would find me an old Archie comic (1940's maybe?). They were prized possessions! I have no idea what became of them...

[Goodheart]

6. Heh

[Poiuyt]

26. My mother's name was Betty and she was a professional writer

Woe unto all of us if we made a grammatical error.

[TheBlackAdder]

35. Everyone knows Betty.

.

.

[question everything]

40. LOL, I needed this

[vlyons]

2. English is a most malleable language

nt

[LongtimeAZDem]

4. It allows us to boldly split infinitives that no one has split before. /nt

[unc70]

16. Always been split

That "rule" was the result of "scholars" trying to make English more like Latin. Latin infinitives were single words that could not be split.

[Ilsa]

3. Use of "I" like that bugs me (not I) as well.

It isn't selfish to say "me."

[elleng]

7. I'm astonished to see how often that occurs,

somehow the OBJECT has been lost, so often confused with the subject.

[unblock]

8. A few rock songs do that occasionally for the sake of a rhyme

If grammar says "me" but the rhyme says "I", some rock songs will prefer prefer the rhyme and ignore the grammar problem rather than reconstructing the whole thing to make it both rhyme and be grammatical.

Sometimes the incorrect grammar is so common it sounds better. "Who is it?" "It is I" is correct but doesn't sound natural at all. It sounds you're in suddenly in a Shakespearean play...

[MoonRiver]

9. These grammatical mistakes drive me crazy!

Everyone makes a mistake from time to time, but for some it is chronic. They clearly have had no education in proper English grammar.

[EffieBlack]

10. My father taught me a simple completely failproof trick for knowing when to use "me" or "I"

If you're not sure, just drop out the other person and the right word will be very clear.

For example "Merry Christmas from Betty and ..." -Drop out "Betty" and try it. "Merry Christmas from I" makes no sense, so clearly the right pronoun is "me."

Same with "Between you and ..." You would not say, "Between I ..." so "me" is the right choice.

[ProudLib72]

20. Same with "Between you and ..." You would not say, "Between I ..." so "me" is the right choice.

All this proper grammar. It hurts between me ears!

[Mr. Quackers]

37. between us?

more economical

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

24. Yes. That's how I was taught the rule, in school, in about fourth grade.

Sometimes when someone says something to me like: "Me and Ashley went skiing last week" I want to respond, "Me never goes skiing."

It is all I can do not to correct people on various mistakes.

Getting lie and lay wrong also sets me off.

[tblue37]

11. What I see and hear a lot these days--even from TV pundits--is "me and him" or "me and her" used as

Last edited Tue Dec 25, 2018, 07:43 PM - Edit history (1)

subjects!

[Wounded Bear]

44. Did you here it hear, or their?

[tblue37]

52. If I rush a post & don't proofread, autocorrect gets me every time. It also, for some

reason, won't let me type "of" without changing it to "if."

[LakeArenal]

12. We all have our grammar idiosyncrasies

Number vs number, as in: The amount of people

Or the question: Where you at?

Less vs fewer, as in: Less people came

Having said all that, I got raked last week for my lack or incorrect punctuation.

Sew their ewe goe ?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. The way to remember the difference between less and fewer

is that less is undividible, while fewer is. Example: I have fewer glasses of milk. I have less milk.

[LakeArenal]

27. I heard if the answer is a number it's fewer

If the answer is an amount it’s less.

Fewer people, less humanity.

It’s useless to care. Even our favorite pundits get it wrong.
I also don’t care on DU when someone is caught up in an emotional response to a topic.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

29. Yep, that works too.

[fishwax]

60. except for measurements (distance, time, volume, etc.)

which use "less," even with a number

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

62. I would argue that the rule about individual units vs a collective amount still applies

even though people use less and fewer interchangeably for measurements. It's just not as jarring.

[AlexSFCA]

32. I hear the "amount of people" on tv all the time

is it possible that it could be correct when the crowd as a whole is being emphasized? In fact, I hear it much more than the “number of people”.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

34. the amount of people depends on the recipe

Sometimes it's 2 scoops, sometimes it's 2-1/2.

[LakeArenal]

42. I still think it's

The amount of the crowd but number of people.

[Wounded Bear]

45. You use amount in the cookbook...

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Language is fluid, and there has always been hand-wringing about changing standards.

[janterry]

15. you beat me!

I posted just below

+1000 to you

[treestar]

31. On a visit to Webster's home in CT

I learned that Webster made American spelling up, just so we would be different from the British. But at the time, the effort was made to standardize spelling. Before that, you could find variants of spelling in publications. It was not agreed upon and the rise of dictionaries created the correctness. If you look at colonial newspapers, you can see that. And they capitalized all nouns. That was a "rule" that changed, so grammar was getting more standardized. So over time and technology, you'd think it would be the opposite. Now we have communication across the world. We might see the distinctions of British and American disappear.

I remember linguistics classes in college and we learned how Latin became the 5 Romance Languages. The poorest and least educated people's habits held sway and because people lived in separate countries, the language changed in 5 different ways. Now we are connected by technology though, so rather than that happening, the opposite might. So you see English spreading across the world, rather than dividing into say "Southern US" and "Canadian" and such. English dialects have developed in places like India or Jamaica, where you might find other English speakers unintelligible. But that is likely to reverse now.

Once on the internet, someone told me that Arabic was breaking down into "Syrian" and "Saudi Arabian" and "Egyptian" but I have a hard time believing that. But if they stayed separate, that could happen.

[janterry]

14. Grammar changes through evolution and chance

It's just what happens
https://www.sciencealert.com/language-grammar-rules-evolve-by-random-chance-and-natural-selection

I like this quote:
"The grammarians might [win the battle] for a decade, but certainly over a century they are going to be on the losing side."

[treestar]

33. But on the side of making things more confusing and less intelligible

in modern times, it does not seem likely. English started out being spelled differently and dictionaries were an attempt to standardize.

I recall being amazed by words the British used and how strange they were. But after the internet and more and more communication, seeing their movies and TV, we know their words too. You can get lists of words of Australian English. They were far away from the British and Americans and came up with their own phrases and words. But now we can be in direct communication over the internet, and learn their words. I expect to see that disappear and the English speaking world, due to this greater communication and technology, become more uniform. Some people will lament the loss of "accents" which is likely, too. We may all sound the same eventually.

There can be changes, but bad grammar is not likely to be the change - or accepting bad grammar as just different.

People do like the sounds of certain phrases. "Can I help who's next?" That is wrong, but people like saying it that way. It should be "whoever," but that makes it shorter. So that kind of change can happen. It is definitely accepted to put it that way, as you hear it all the time from people who are at work and therefore doing their best.

[LakeArenal]

43. It's all just words.... I think vernacular changes

But grammar stays the same.

[janterry]

51. I'm afraid, according to linguists

-- even grammar changes. Though, in the here and now, you are right - there are rules .

[Yonnie3]

17. Just between you and I, me has always been confused on the usage.

I do sometimes use "I" incorrectly.

The usage that always bothers me is effect and affect being used interchangeably. I have been wondering of late if I have learned their meanings incorrectly.

[question everything]

53. Affect is the action, effect is the result

Trump's behavior has affected the way we took to the polling places.

The high number of voters had the effect of turning the House Democratic.

(I am not a maven so these examples may not be the same).

And this is the reason why many have resorted to using impact as both a verb and a noun.

[Yonnie3]

54. Yes, that is my understanding.

Yet, I often see headlines and news articles that read "repairs will effect traffic ... " and similar.

[Tech]

19. Get off my

Lawn lol. Me am the child of educators lol. Sorru, had to do it 😂

[underpants]

21. Me welcome you to DU

[underpants]

22. Grammar got run over by a reindeer

Grandma got run over by a reindeer
Walking home from our house Christmas eve
You can say there's no such thing as Santa
But as for me and grandpa we believe

[Kurt V.]

28. .

[Cold War Spook]

23. When I am not sure, I change it to we or us to see which seems right.

I am very rarely wrong that way. Favorite grammar joke. I businessman flew into Boston at dinner time and his friends had told him to find a restaurant that served scrod. Getting into a taxi, he asked the driver where he could get scrod. The driver turned to him and said "Sure, but I haven't had some one ask me that in the third-person pluperfect indicative in a long time. Yes, 3 years of Latin in Boston of course. Also 3 years of French and 1400 hours learning Russian at Defense Language Institute. Did Santa leave you presents last night. You know he could not make all those toys if he did not have help from his subordinate clauses.

[UpInArms]

39. Thanks!

[TJKatd]

30. Myself...

I hear many people use "myself" insead of "I" or "me."

[Iggo]

36. Using the subjective form of a personal pronoun as the object of a preposition is for dumbs.

[sagetea]

38. Thank you!

English is very intimidating, I'm self taught and still have a hard time with it! I'm 50!! lol!! It's why I don't talk much...because I don't want to sound like I'm trying too hard! lol!!


sage

[question everything]

41. I will never accept "irregardless" with the two negatives

But I think that it is now part of the language.

I dread the day when many will shrug with misusing of the apostrophe.

its and it's, your and you're

[FakeNoose]

46. Unfortunately people get confused

"Merry Christmas from Betty and me" requires the same case as "Merry Christmas from me." Me is always correct whether Betty is involved or not.

"Between you and me ..." is always correct, while "Between you and I ..." is never correct.

When people hear (or read) the wrong case being used, it confuses them. They start thinking that maybe either case is OK to use, or maybe it doesn't matter anyway so what the hell.

[wasupaloopa]

47. I can do nothing about the way people speak or write and I sure as hell am not going

to waste time being upset about something I can do nothing about.

If anything I said or spelled is wrong here don’t bother me with it.

[Goodheart]

48. A big part of me says "I" and "me" SHOULD be interchangeable.

Someone give me a practical or logical necessity for two words that mean the same thing.

[wasupaloopa]

49. Just to irritate some people I say "I myself".

[LAS14]

55. I'm afraid you're right. The rule is going to die. In the meantime I'll cringe away!

[shraby]

57. I was told to say it to myself like this:

Merry Christmas from Betty
Merry Christmas from I
Doesn't sound right

This sounds much better:
Merry Christmas from Betty
Merry Christmas from me.

The second one would be right.

[Cha]

58. That grates my

nerves. Guess I'll have to get over what I learned in school!

[VOX]

59. You think me and him should of joined the democrat party sooner.

My subject line is replete with common grammatical fracturing that makes my flesh crawl. And what the hell happened to using the question mark??????

Sorry, but I’ve been a professional writer for higher education for 31+ years, and I cannot tolerate what I still consider illiteracy.

Texting has reduced words to fractional vanity-license-plate-speak: im so N2 U,
UR GR8, etc.

And our popular entertainments have reduced our common vocabulary to land somewhere between Larry the Cable Guy and J.B. Smoove’s Leon Black on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

[womanofthehills]

61. Or we could speak like Trump - forget choosing between me or I - just third person fun & games

So I told my friend Joe - "Marilyn wants to know if you are coming over today" .....