Grammatical mistakes are a funny thing. Some go almost unnoticed and really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Others seem like daggers ripping at the very fabric of the English language. The most common of those has to be the overuse of the word I.
Most of us with any level of education know that the word I is used as the subject of a verb (the part of the sentence doing the action). We would never say, ” Me speak correctly.” We also know to say, “My friend and I speak correctly.”
So far so good. Somehow, however, that confident and correct usage of the word I flies out the window when we hit the object of a verb (the part of the sentence the action is being done to, hence the object of the action). “The party is being given by Sean and I,” a friend recently told me.
I refrained from correcting her. My 85-year-old dad still publicly corrects people’s language mistakes, which drives me nuts.
So I bit my tongue and let the me vs I mistake slide by. But I wanted to ask, “Would you say the party is being given by I?” Never! Adding Sean or even every friend you have into the picture doesn’t change that. If you would use the word me when talking about yourself, then you should still use the word me no matter who else you’re including in the sentence (or the party).
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