Me, Myself, or I

Dave Tutelman  --  June 17, 2009

One of my retirement pastimes is editing stories, fiction, for some Internet authors. I find myself correcting lots of common mistakes. Most of them are misspellings of homophones, such as writing "discrete" when you meant "discreet". But more often than I would like to see, authors use "I" when proper grammar demands "me". Here's a fairly simple rule to tell which you should use.


"She thanked John and I for the gift."

You see this sort of sentence written all the time. By "this sort" I mean the "John and I", rather than "John and me". What?!? Isn't it correct? It certainly sounds better... classier... more literate.

Well, it's wrong! The correct grammar would be, "She thanked John and me for the gift."

There is a very easy way to tell which is correct -- "I" or "me" -- in cases like this. At least it is easy if you are a comfortable speaker of English as your native tongue. The rule they teach in school is not easy; it almost requires diagramming the sentence.

But this is easy! All you have to do is drop the other name and try "I" and "me" in the sentence. One will sound right, and the other will not. Try it:
  • She thanked I for the gift.
  • She thanked me for the gift.
Which is correct? It's pretty obvious (to a native speaker) that the second is correct, while the first is really awkward, stilted, and just plain wrong. So we have to say "She thanked John and me for the gift."

Easy!

But occasionally the sentence doesn't make sense unless there are two people mentioned. An example suggested by my friend Paul Chisholm is, "She couldn't tell the difference between John and I." Or should it have been "me"? Let's see.

The method is a variant of what we just did, but a bit more complex. Still a lot easier than diagramming sentences. Substitute "we" and "us" for both people. So our current example would be:
  • She couldn't tell the difference between we.
  • She couldn't tell the difference between us.
Which is correct? It's pretty obvious (to a native speaker) that the second is correct, while the first is really awkward, stilted, and just plain wrong. Now we refer to a table:

If the right word is... then use this after "and".
we I
us me

Since, in our example, the correct construct is, "She couldn't tell the difference between us," you have to write it as, "She couldn't tell the difference between John and me." Same answer, and still pretty simple.

Less common, but still very common, is a similar problem with "he" and "she" vs "him" and "her". And the solution is equally simple. Drop the other name and try "he" and "him" alone. Example: consider the sentence, "Max and him will do the yard work."
  • He will do the yard work.
  • Him will do the yard work.
By the same reasoning as before, we now know to say "Max and he will do the yard work."

If you need both for the sentence to make sense, then do what we did before. Substitute "they" and "them". If we substitute "they" and "them", we get:
  • They will do the yard work.
  • Them will do the yard work.
The comparable table is:

If the right word is... then use this after "and".
they he, she
them him, her

So the correct way of constructing the sentence is, "Max and he will do the yard work."

Hope this helps. If it is confusing, please let me know what your confusion is so I can improve the article.


Last modified  July 21, 2015