Overcorrection. <\/p>\n
It’s a natural human inclination. If you throw me a heavy ball I catch in my right hand and then throw me a heavy ball I catch in my left hand, I will lean right, lean left, and then balance myself to the middle eventually. <\/p>\n
There was a time (I want to say it was the early 1980s) when everyone I knew said so-and-so and me<\/i> regardless of whether it was appropriate for the sentence or not: Jill and me went to the comic book convention on Saturday<\/i> or Bill and me lost our virginity on the doorstep of my parents’ house<\/i>. Then I guess some hoity-toity wanna-be grammarians kept chastising others with “No, it’s so-and-so and I<\/b><\/i>,” and eventually, instead of learning that it depends on the structure of the sentence, people learned that it was always so-and-so and I<\/i> instead of so-and-so and me<\/i>. Now, twenty years later, almost every college graduate I know who is between the ages of 22 and 35 will say so-and-so and I<\/i> even if the sentence warrants a so-and-so and me<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Here’s a quick lesson for those who don’t want to burn my ears. So-and-so and I<\/i> is just a more specific way of saying we<\/i>. So-and-so and me<\/i> is just a more specific way of saying us<\/i>. So substitute in we<\/i> or us<\/i> as necessary and see if the sentence sounds funny to you.<\/p>\n
Examples<\/b>
That was just a secret between Michelle and I<\/i>
Lawn bowling is something Gertrude and I enjoy doing every Saturday<\/i>
Hester gave a thoughtful gift to Edith and I<\/i>
Grace and I wanted to play bridge but couldn’t find the cards<\/i> <\/p>\n
Okay. Let’s substitute in we<\/i> or us<\/i> and see how the sentences sound now. <\/p>\n
That was just a secret between we<\/i> (wrong<\/b>)
Lawn bowling is something we enjoy doing every Saturday<\/i> (right<\/b>)
Hester gave a thoughtful gift to we<\/i> (wrong<\/b>)
We wanted to play bridge but couldn’t find the cards<\/i> (right<\/b>). <\/p>\n
Some people also recommend removing the so-and-so<\/i> to see how ridiculous the sentence sounds (e.g., That was just a secret between I<\/i> or That was just a secret between me<\/i>), but that doesn’t preserve the meaning of the sentence, so I prefer substituting in we<\/i> and us<\/i> instead. <\/p>\n
It’s not that complicated, really. So-and-so and I<\/i> is the same as we<\/i>, and so-and-so and me<\/i> is the same as us<\/i>. If you can keep we<\/i> and us<\/i> straight, you should know when to use I<\/i> and me<\/i> appropriately with a so-and-so<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Overcorrection. It’s a natural human inclination. If you throw me a heavy ball I catch in my right hand and then throw me a heavy ball I catch in my left hand, I will lean right, lean left, and then balance myself to the middle eventually. There was a time (I want to say it… Continue reading Sometimes so-and-so and me<\/i> is okay.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[148,389],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-grammar","tag-rants","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":670,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}