Grammar Adventures with Me and George
Common wisdom dictates that if a grammatical "mistake" becomes common enough, it is no longer a mistake. What used to be a sound grammar rule may change with real-world usage; meaning that if no one conforms to the rule, the rule changes. Real-world usage aside, the widespread use of "me and so-and-so" in our culture drives me a bit crazy!
It used to be, "George and I went to the store." A couple decades ago, if someone said, "Me and George went to the store," the listener would quietly come to the conclusion that the speaker was uneducated. Nowadays, turn on the television and the newscaster is saying, "Me and ... blah, blah, blah." Talk radio hosts say it. I have been shocked to hear highly educated people like lawyers say "Me and so-and-so" on a regular basis.
You know what's even scarier? I have intentionally included the "me and George" error and other grammatical mishaps in this article and ran it through Microsoft Word's spelling and grammar check. Guess what? The constant "me and ..." usage did not even show up as a grammar error!
Is this poor grammar just the product of a narcissistic "Me, me, me society?" Are we just getting dumb? Or am I way behind the times and getting dumb as a result because I am not using real-world usage?
Frankly, it's been many years since I suffered through a semester of grammar class. I can see or hear what's off with a sentence but do not know what the error is specifically called. So, instead of finding the right words and rules to explain it, here's the common sense rule that I learned back in second grade:
Break up the sentence to see if you are using the correct pronoun. If you're saying "Me and George went to the store," keep George out of it and try this: "Me went to the store." Sounds ridiculous, eh? On the other hand,If you were to use the correct version, which is "George and I went to the store," split up the correct sentence and we have, "George went to the store," and "I went to the store." You can do this with a variety of sentences to easily figure out what makes the most grammatical sense.
Common sense aside, those of us who are offended by the constant "me and so-and-so" grammar can at least take comfort in the fact that pronoun variations such as "Me and him went to the store" or "Her and me went to the store" have not yet skyrocketed to the top of the common usage charts.
Now that this irritant is off my chest, me going to the store. Maybe George wants to go, too.
Urbain Beck is a freelance writer who has written a number of online and off-line articles and technical reports. If you have written online content and would like to show off your writing, be sure to submit some blurbs at The Blurbosphere. You'll receive one-way links (http://www.blurbosphere.com) from PR2, PR3 and PR4 blogs at no charge. Visit http://www.blurbosphere.com for details.
