What is it - Me or I?

Confused? Not sure what to use? You are not alone.

Mistakes are perpetuated by what we hear and what we get used to - what sounds right.

“Me and Syd are going to the game.” I bet you hear this all the time, and it’s actually incorrect.

In fact, saying “Syd and I are going to the game” uses correct grammar. Here’s a quick way to figure out what to use.

If you remove Syd from the sentence, you have either “Me am going to the game” or “I am going to the game.” Hopefully, you can tell that “I am going to the game” is right, and then you can put Syd back into the sentence. Now you have “Syd and I are going to the game.”

What about this one?

“Me and him went skiing.” There are two errors here. Try taking “him” out and you’ll see that you are left with “Me went skiing.” This is incorrect. You want to use “I went skiing.”

Then, take out “me” to see if using “him” is correct. “Him went skiing” or “He went skiing”?

After these two steps, hopefully you see that choosing “He and I went skiing” is the correct option.

These steps can be tricky and they take practice.

If you have other grammar questions, I would love to hear them!

Practice: Are these correct or incorrect? (answers are below)

1. Me and Sam are best friends.

2. Before I left, her and me went to the locker room.

3. After the show, Fred and I went out for pizza.

4. She and I watch The Crown together.

5. Me and Hutch love to play baseball.

Answers:

1. Incorrect - use Sam and I are best friends.

2. Incorrect - use Before I left, she and I went to the locker room.

3. Correct

4. Correct

5. Incorrect - use Hutch and I love to play baseball.