Korean Job Discussion Forums

[poet13]

I'm doing a laminated exercise right now, and my version of word keeps kicking out (green underline), "My brother and me." "Me and my friends."

I remember growing up that that grammar was incorrect, but I thought the convention had changed, and it was now ok to use me instead of I.

Can anybody sort me out? Can I ignore the grammarian in Word, or go back and re-learn basic grammar?

[icnelly]

I = subject pronoun. It can be used in the subject slot of a sentence.

Me = object pronoun. It can be used in the object slots of a sentence.

A friend gave me a ball.

I gave a ball to my friend.

The historical mistake was when using a cordinating conjunction with an subject pronoun.

He gave my friend and I a ball. (this is incorrect).

He gave my friend and me a ball. (this sounds funny, but it is correct).

[poet13]

Ok. Just for giggles, try this.
Open a Word file and paste this....
(I'll be interested to see what your version does. Mine came up green on lines 1,2,3,5,7,8,9 in the second set.)

John and I went to the store.
Mary and I are best friends.
Your brother and I are playing soccer.
My brother, me, and John, like pizza.
I and Mark are good swimmers.
I think you and I should learn Tae Kwan Do.
My friends and I will meet later.
My dog and I are best friends.
Those boys and I were fighting.
That girl and I went for a walk.


John and me went to the store.
Mary and me are best friends.
Your brother and me are playing soccer.
My brother, me, and John, like pizza.
Me and Mark are good swimmers.
I think you and me should learn Tae Kwan Do.
My friends and me will meet later.
My dog and me are best friends.
Those boys and me were fighting.
That girl and me went for a walk.

[Woland]

If this conjoined phrase is in subject position in the sentence, the grammar check in Word will insist on the use of a subject pronoun - I. That's probably what's happening here. What's the full sentence you are working on?

English speakers produce all four possible variants in pronoun case and order in conjoined phrases:

a) My brother and I went to the store

b) ?I and my brother went to the store

c) My brother and me went to the store

d) Me and my brother went to the store

Steven Pinker has a nice discussion in his book The Language Instinct of why this has to be so in order for English to be a natural language.

While we may produce all of these, they are not all equally socially evaluated. Prescriptive rules establish a clear preference for a), with pronoun case in agreement with the grammatical role of the conjoined phrase and first person pronouns relegated to second position in order ("Always put your friends before yourself," my teachers would say).

These prescriptive rules are pretty powerful, and I would teach my students a) as the correct form because they may be judged negatively if they produce the other forms.

(NB: The examples above cover only use of conjoined phrases in subject position. When the conjoined phrase occupies other grammatical roles (like direct object or object of preposition), prescriptive grammar insists that pronoun case agree with the grammatical role of the phrase again, and would be the object form.)

[poet13]

"What's the full sentence you are working on?"

Those are the full sentences listed above. What I am doing is a 1st year pronoun replacement exercise. Simply, the students will read the sentence substituting the correct pronoun.

"These prescriptive rules are pretty powerful, and I would teach my students a) as the correct form because they may be judged negatively if they produce the other forms. "

That's an interesting point. I guess I also have to make sure that I'm not teaching my students something that is technically correct, but deemed INcorrect here in Korea.

[Woland]

[faster]

An easy way to deal with it is to delete the other party and read it.

He gave the guns to John and I.

(He gave the gun to I)

That sounds wrong, doesn't it (if not, you may not be a native English speaker, heh). Therefore it should, in fact, be

He gave the guns to John and me.

And guess what? It's also in the object position, fulfilling the rule of subject / object pronoun cases.

[icnelly]

But as Woland was saying the conjoined phrases pop up rather frequently in colloquial speech, so what sounds funny to someone might be different. I would daresay you would hear more variations on this from native speakers than you ever would with second language learners.

Yes, the simple way is to seperate the object phrase into parts.

But, in this given example, nothing is in the subject position except 'He':

[quote]He gave the guns to John and me.

And guess what? It's also in the subject position, fulfilling the rule of subject / object pronoun cases.
[/quote]

[faster]

Yeah, that was a mistake, I meant "object" of course (edited and chagrined).

It is certainly true that this rule doesn't apply to typical speech. I don't think I've ever heard someone say:

I'm jealous of Joe because he's better looking than I.

But it's still considered standard English grammar, for better or worse (and I strongly hold it's for the worse, but that's a bigger discussion).

[CasperTheFriendlyGhost]

Me too.