Grammar Snacks: Personal Problems with Pronouns

It’s summertime, but I’m not feeling like the Good Humor Man. (Do any of you even remember the Good Humor Man? I don’t, though I clearly recall the ice-cold, chocolate-covered disappointment those ice cream bars represented.) For this snack, I’d love to serve up something cool and sweet if cool and sweet meant something nutritiously educational and deliciously funny, but the funny part of the equation has taken an early vacation. So I’m not going to force the funny on this entry; you’ll just have to settle for a grammar refresher and find some good humor elsewhere.

Today, we’re going to revisit a usage lesson we were supposed to have mastered long ago. (For some of us, that would have been around the time the Good Humor Man still walked the Earth.) Today’s lesson: correct usage of our favorite subject and object, I and Me.

I for a me and me for an I
The personal pronoun I functions as a subject of the sentence. It’s always a subject, never an object. And if a sentence features an appearance of a compound subject that includes I, I goes onstage last. Meanwhile, the personal pronoun me always functions as an object—a direct object, an indirect object, an object of a preposition. Me is never a subject. (Well, technically, it’s the subject of that last sentence, but you know what I mean.) Just like the subject I, the object me goes last in a series.

Snack on these examples, won’t you?
Wrong: I, Keith and Eve tipped a Honey Bucket at the park while its occupant was locked inside.
Right: Keith, Eve and I tipped a Honey Bucket at the park while its occupant was locked inside.

Wrong: Expert social networker and part-time underwear model Anthony Weiner gave Jenkins and I a quick tutorial on the best ways to share photos via Twitter.
Right: Expert social networker and part-time underwear model Anthony Weiner gave Jenkins and me a quick tutorial on the best ways to share photos via Twitter.

This example shows how we can run afoul of the laws of grammar by misusing I. The “wrong” sentence actually sounds right, but as you’ll notice I acts as an object, not as a subject. Therefore, the personal pronoun should be me, as written in the “right” sentence.

Linking verbs and I
Any time a personal pronoun follows a linking verb—i.e., a non-action verb—that pronoun must be a subject pronoun.

Right: “It is I, the Phantom Streaker,” announced the naked man running across my front lawn before disappearing into the night.
Acceptable: “It is me, the Phantom Streaker,” announced the naked man running across my front lawn before disappearing into the night.

Grammarians might wince when they hear the latter sentence, but for casual speech it’s generally acceptable to use me for I.

Using me and I with as and than
According to English grammar tradition, we follow the conjunctions as and than with a subject pronoun. For example, Few people are as fun-loving as I. So why is it I and not me? That’s because in the interest of conciseness we’re omitting a word. Here’s the same sentence sans omission: Few people are as fun-loving as I am.

But sometimes we like to kick tradition to the curb. Which is why it’s also acceptable to follow as and than with an object pronoun (e.g., me). It can be argued that as and than function as prepositions, not conjunctions; therefore, the pronouns that succeed them are objects, not subjects.

Right: No one knows the perils of petting a honey badger better than I.
Acceptable: No one knows the perils of petting a honey badger better than me.

As for myself
The personal pronoun myself also creates havoc in sentences. We’ll wrangle with this beast next month.