Me, myself, and aye-carumba!
I’ve never had trouble figuring out when to use me or I in a sentence. I’m not bragging about it, like that makes me a special person; I have my own stumbling blocks, such as remembering my children’s birthdates. At any rate, it’s obvious that there are many people who have trouble with me vs. I, as well as we/us, he/him, she/her, and they/them. Jay Nordlinger commented on this problem:
Over the weekend, I was reading some books to little ones, and found myself sort of having to correct the English as I went. For example, one book wanted me to say, “The same thing happened to Bobby and myself.”
Ugh, the myself, from people too insecure or ignorant to say me! (Myself is always the refuge — false refuge — of those who don’t know how to use I and me.) Just killed me. (Killed myself?)
I thought that was rich: people fearful of making a blunder in choosing between me and I, so they opt for a different approach entirely and make a different blunder. Myself here is just plain wrong. (Grammar Geek explanation: Myself, along with ourselves, yourself, yourselves, herself, himself, and themselves, are reflexive pronouns, which means that it’s an object of the sentence pointing back at the subject. For example “Bobby and I did it to ourselves.”)
There’s a simple little trick I learned oh so many years ago in elementary school that you can use to know which pronoun to use. Let’s take Jay’s example:
“The same thing happened to Bobby and _____.” Which one is it, me or I?
The trick is to get rid of that the other person. (Don’t worry, he’ll be perfectly safe.) With Bobby out of the picture, the sentence becomes “The same thing happened to …” and I hope you know that the correct pronoun for the object of this sentence is “me.” If that’s the right word to use when you’re alone, then it’s the right word to use when Bobby is with you. “The same thing happened to Bobby and me.”
Let’s turn the sentence around so we’re the subjects, not the objects:
“Bobby and _____ had the same thing happen.” Me or I?
Again, I hope it’s obvious that you wouldn’t say “Me had the same thing happen,” unless you’re going for the faux-caveman sound. If you would say “I had the same thing happen,” then “Bobby and I had the same thing happen,” is also correct.
It works the same for the other pronouns as well. Let’s try it with Mona and an unnamed friend.
”_____ and Mona went to the library.” She or her? Well, if Mona were staying home, then we all know that she would go by herself. Mona needs to return some books, though, so “She and Mona went to the library.”
There are a couple of quirks to how you apply this (leave it to Grammar Geeks to make it complicated), but this little trick will do nicely for about 90% of the cases you’re likely to run into. We’ll talk about those exceptions later, mostly because I started out hoping to make this a relatively short entry.
[Note: This post has been modified to fix an error caused by sloppy revision work. Told you I would make mistakes.]
Roy Jacobsen
I’ve posted a follow-up entry to this one, expanding the topic to discuss what pronoun to use when you’re making comparisons: Me, myself, and aya-carumba, revisted.
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Reader Comments (3)
I may be following this blog in the future, and not only in the hope of having this specific issue resolved. If the content continues to be as clear and simple as the page layout, I'll be satisfied.
PS: I'd like to conveniently blame any errors in above text on my status as ESL. Thank you.
The question that comment 1 poses is the exact same one that I've been googling... doesn't anyone know the answer?
Marina,
Anders posted a few questions:
"...I still think that it may be ok to leave out the final "am". Yes? No?"
and,
"And can you confirm that 'He is the same as me' is definitely incorrect?"
Which one are you asking about?