Don't Fear "Me"

"Me and Brian want to...,"
"You mean, 'Brian and I' want to..."

How many times have we all been corrected by goodly parents and teachers when we eagerly began a sentence with such unforgivable grammar? Countless, to be sure. Or, we heard others being corrected for such transgressions and decided to avoid an incident by speaking properly in the presence of the grammar enforcers.

Well, it was overkill.

I can't begin to quantify how many times I hear someone say "He told Shelley and I to...," or "that's a gift from Carlos and I," or, "please let Captain Zorg Spelanovinkii and I try the druffelentilizer-shnerr a couple of times!"

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It seems we all became so sensitized to the "Brian and me" scenario that we think anytime we talk about another person in conjunction with ourselves we use " _____ and I" regardless of where such a phrase takes place in a sentence.

Simple rule: imagine the sentence you want to construct without the other person attached to the "I" or "me" that you are planning to use. If you should say "me" when it is just you alone ("give me the sandwich," or "that hulsidenzia-002 is from me"), then you can say "____ and me." In other words, you should use the form of the word identifying you the same way regardless if you mention twenty other people with you or nobody else.

"Brian and I want to play piano-blanketing. Would you like to play with Brian and me?" (you wouldn't say "play with I"--at least without getting a look of suspicion from someone wondering what your native tongue might be)

Ah, music to my ears! Actually, it kind of isn't, because I too feel the shadow of the goodly grammar Nazi (irony alert) peaking over my shoulder, giving me a slight sense of uneasiness for putting two words together in a way that I thought was taboo, which was only true in some cases. Hence, one of the reasons I bring this up.

When I try to demonstrate my what-should-be-obvious superiority by speaking such proper grammar, it is likely that inferior beings incorrectly perceive me as speaking errantly when I say "with Brian and me." (no, I'm not running away with anyone named Brian--get your minds out of the gutter). Thus, the irony is by speaking properly I am perceived as being ignorant or might have a ranch in Crawford, Texas or something.

So, in short, please join me in acknowledging that as incorrect as it might sound to your not-so-intuitive-grammar organ, "Brian and me" is perfectly fine, as long as it is not followed by an action verb that is performed by Brian and me, in which case it would be "Brian and I," unless that action verb is part of a clause separate from the first clause in which Brian and I were not performing the action, such as "Though he snoikered the shosher to Brian and me, hitting the floor was the proper action for Brian and me to take."

However, it has also been argued by linguists (what do they know!) that "Brian and I" (stop it!) can be thought of as a clause or phrase that can be plugged in at various places in a sentence, so the pronoun I would not have to be transformed as it normally would based on its place (function) in a sentence. So, indeed, "stop speculating about Brian and I" could also be acceptable, though this may represent an evolution (I prefer the words "mutation" or "abomination") of grammar, that was probably encouraged by the fact that grammar nazis everywhere freaked out when little Scotty would say, "Brian and me want to..."

So, what has all this come down to?

Nothin.