Re: Me and I

"Tmuld" <tmuldoon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,

I have always been told it is correct to say for example

"Tom and I" as opposed to "Me and Tom".

You have provided no context here, so whether "Tom and I" rather than "Me
and Tom" is correct cannot be determined from the available information.

In the sentence "Tom and I went to the movies last night", "Me and Tom"
would be grammatically incorrect; however, many (don't ask how many,
because I don't know, but enough to allow one to hear it on the street in
all anglophone countries) a poorly educated native speaker of English
would use the latter.

In the sentence "The boss fired me and Tom this morning", "Tom and I"
would be grammatically incorrect; however, many (don't ask how many,
because I don't know, but enough to allow one to hear it on the street in
all anglophone countries) a poorly educated native speaker of English
would use the latter. Whether that grammatically correct sentence should
be "The boss fired Tom and me this morning" is another issue. It is
usually considered to be polite to put oneself last instead of first in a
pair or a series, but that is a matter of idiom (customary usage) rather
than grammaticality.

All questions of grammaticality or acceptability of usages should be put
into a context before asking whether they are good, bad, or indifferent.

I will assume that because you wrote "Me" instead of "me", you meant for
"Me" to be the subject of a sentence.

Are both OK?

Okay to whom? That's an important question. All of us here don't always
agree on what's "okay" (acceptable usage), but we generally agree on what
is standard and grammatical English.

Is one more grammatically correct?

Grammatical correctness is like pregnancy and death: either it/one is or
it/one isn't. Comparative states of these conditions are metaphorical.

Where would I find an authority on this?

You might try an English grammar handbook, but grammar books don't cover
all possible contexts.

--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Posting from Taiwan
It's all in the way you say it, innit?
.

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