#2. Language Lessons with Miss Mandy

It’s back. . . by popular request. The “good grammar is hot” people are out in force!

And today’s lesson, boys and girls, has to do with the pronouns I and me and a little thing we word nerds like to call case.

There are three cases of pronouns: subjective, objective, and possessive. You use different ones for different reasons. Too many people out there have not learned this fact when it comes to I and me. I may be stepping on a few toes here, but it’s a minor annoyance that’s grown into a pet peeve for me. Way too many people like to employ the simple pronoun I instead of me because they think it sounds smarter. Guess what? Sometimes me is right. And when it is and you use I . . . you don’t sound smart!

If you’re talking about yourself and the pronoun is the subject, you say I. Examples: I went to work. I took that picture. If you’re talking about yourself and the pronoun is an object (of a verb, preposition, indirect object), the word to use is me. Examples: He took that picture of Carl and me. Here’s a picture of Jason and me. Between you and me, that’s just dumb.

So when you’re writing a caption in an album on Facebook and want to tell everyone who’s in the pic, please don’t resort to the ever-popular “So-and-So and I at Margaritaville,” don’t. Because you’re wrong. Because it should be “So-and-So and me at Margaritaville.” When you do use the incorrect case and I read it, just know that you’re forcing me to have some sort of conniption fit and I may be marking on my computer screen with a red marker.

(And if you do go to Margaritaville, say hi to Jimmy Buffett for me.)