Me vs. I, Object vs. Subject

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, it’s Art from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

Okay.

North of Philadelphia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

What would you like to talk with us about?

I have recently reawakened the whole I versus me and me and my friends, or my friends and I kind of a pet peeve.

It came about because of my daughter, a high school senior, and she was talking at the dinner table and said something like, me and my friends are going to the movies on Friday or something like that.

And my mother-in-law sitting there says, you should say my friends and I.

And, of course, my daughter goes to the eye roll and says, yeah, whatever, and continues on with this story.

Meanwhile, I was cringing because I know my mother-in-law is right.

But on the other hand, I never really got this rule, and my solution has always been, oh, don’t even bother saying it.

Change the whole sentence around to not have that question in your head.

Something like, on Friday I’m going to go to the movies with my friends, or something like that.

And so I was trying to get that cleared up, and I also have always been wondering about, why do we have all these stupid kinds of rules?

Because especially in this case, everybody knows what my daughter meant.

There’s no loss of meaning, right?

There’s no gain of meaning.

It’s just there’s the right way and the wrong way.

And why do we need that kind of rule?

Now, obviously, there’s lots of rules you do need because the meanings change when you use it the wrong way.

Right.

What a big question that is.

How many hours do you have, Art?

Yeah, I know.

I was realizing that I opened up this Pandora’s box earlier.

Well, let’s talk about a hypothetical situation.

Let’s suppose that either one of those could work, right?

And that nobody really cared what somebody said.

My friends and I are going to the movies.

My friends and me are going to the movies.

Let’s say that nobody really cared.

Or that you just said that the standard way and the only way is to say my friends and me are going to the movies.

And just forget the I, right?

Yeah.

The difficulty with this is that we will lose some of the pragmatics of English.

And by pragmatics, I mean there are times and places where certain kinds of English works better than it would in other kinds of times and places.

So in this particular case, your mother-in-law was telling her that there’s a better way to say it.

But what she was talking about was the formal, utmost perfect way to say it.

And the young woman was using the very informal way to say it.

They are both English.

They are both allowed in English.

The thing is they’re allowed in different circumstances.

And the main key difference between them is the level of formality.

Language works in service of culture.

And if, for example, we all spoke informal English and there was no such thing as formal English, we would reinvent it.

Because our culture requires that some way, somehow, we express that there’s more deference required, that there is more respect paid, that the occasion is important, that the person that you’re talking with has higher status.

We would reinvent it.

You know, I think about it in terms of dress.

I think about if you say me and my friends are going to the movie, linguistically, I think you’re wearing a sweatsuit, you know, as opposed to looking a little bit more paquete, as they’d say in Spanish, a little bit more put together.

And you’re right.

Of course it depends on the context.

And we all did learn different ways.

Yeah, we did.

I mean, I didn’t learn until I was in my 30s or so that you’re not supposed to mention yourself first.

Oh, interesting.

I’ve never heard that.

Oh, really?

No.

Yeah, I think you’ll find some older sticklers will say you should never mention yourself first.

You should mention your friends.

And it’s just sort of this humanizing deference to other people.

So to go back on this, there’s another thing at play here, too.

Not only would we reinvent these different formal levels of English if they didn’t already exist, but there’s also a time and a place for correcting people.

And maybe it’s okay for the mother-in-law to correct her granddaughter.

Maybe that’s fine.

Right. I mean, at the dinner table, I mean, you have to have a minimum number of eye rolls by the teenager in every meal, right? Or else it’s not a meal.

The turkey doesn’t taste as good unless there’s eye rolls to go with it. It’s like a seasoning.

So I think we’ve gone a little way to answering what is a very convoluted and complicated question.

Your question, if I can restate it, was why do we have this? Why do we have these different kinds of English? Do we really need them?

Isn’t it okay just to be informal all the time?

Is that a fair restatement?

Yeah, and who’s the keeper of the rules is kind of mind-boggling because I actually wonder if this particular thing is something that is changing.

Because it seems like I hear that usage from younger people much more.

I would say it’s on its way to changing, but I sure wouldn’t teach it at this point.

If you paid me or hired me to help you improve your English, or if someone did, I would always make sure that you knew the difference, that you understood what was happening when you spoke formally and informally.

That’s the key.

Both have to be explained.

Thanks, Art, for calling.

Let us know if this helps around the dinner table.

This is a source of conflict.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Art.

Thanks.

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