"I" vs. "me", where did this 'rule' come from?

[Bohandas]

Ok, so a lot of you are probably aware that there are a bunch of alleged grammarical rules out there as to whether to use "I" or "me" in a sentence (especially if it's and-someone-else), that often don't in any way reflect the way the English language is actually spoken. What I want to know is if these rules are derived in some way from Latin because I know that a lot of the wackier inaccurate "grammarical rules" (such as not splitting infinitives) were derived from Latin back in the days when people were still in awe of the Roman Empire and you could still truthfully describe the Roman Empire as having been impressive and mighty without having to add a comma and the word "considering". And if it isn't from Latin where the hell did it come from?

[Fri]

I don't know what rule are you talking about, can you give me example?

[Bohandas]

like "Jenny and me joined the chess club" would be considered wrong. It should supposedly be "Jenny and I" despite the fact that that isn't how people talk.

Or "Jill took Justin and I to the shop" is wrong. It should be "Justin and me", even though that actually sounds slightly less right.

[OracleofWuffing]

This Editor and a couple of other sites that I came up when I searched for "I vs me object or subject of the sentence," implies that it's an issue native to English, just due to how English defines the two as subject pronouns and object pronouns.

E: Latin's all greek to me, though, so maybe someone else more fluent can clarify if Latin has that distinction as well. Or any other language, for that matter.

[crayzz]

Ok, so a lot of you are probably aware that there are a bunch of alleged grammarical rules out there as to whether to use "I" or "me" in a sentence (especially if it's and-someone-else), that often don't in any way reflect the way the English language is actually spoken. What I want to know is if these rules are derived in some way from Latin because I know that a lot of the wackier inaccurate "grammarical rules" (such as not splitting infinitives) were derived from Latin back in the days when people were still in awe of the Roman Empire and you could still truthfully describe the Roman Empire as having been impressive and mighty without having to add a comma and the word "considering". And if it isn't from Latin where the hell did it come from?

It's really just 1 rule, not a bunch, and it isn't that wacky: it's just a subject/object distinction, which AFAIK is pretty common.

"I" is used when you're referring to yourself as a doing something: "I ran down the street," or "I jumped the fence." "I" is a subject pronoun.

"Me" is used otherwise: "Pass me the ball," or "They sent me an email." In those cases the person "Me" is referring to is not doing the verb. "Me" is an object pronoun.

like "Jenny and me joined the chess club" would be considered wrong. It should supposedly be "Jenny and I" despite the fact that that isn't how people talk.

Or "Jill took Justin and I to the shop" is wrong. It should be "Justin and me", even though that actually sounds slightly less right.

So in the first example, the "I" is doing the verb, so the subject pronoun is used. The "I" in that sentence is joining the chess club.

In the latter example, "Jill" is the one doing the verb, so Jill is the subject. "Justin and I" aren't doing anything, and thus "Justin and me" would be correct instead.

EDITED: For clarity

EDITED AGAIN

Unfortunately, Subject-Object distinction is also a phrase used in philosophy, so searching for a linguistic history is muddied.

[Knaight]

It lines up with how a lot of people talk just fine, and as stated above is just a standard matter of subject and object distinction. The same thing applies to other paired pronouns (they/them, he/him, she/her), with I/me standing out mostly for not holding as firmly in certain regional dialects, much like who/whom.

What's also interesting is that if used on their own I/me tends to conform more to "proper" usage. "Jenny and me joined the chess club" can see actual use, "Me joined the chess club" is an improper second language usage that almost never shows up with native speakers. "Jill took Justin and I to the shop" just sounds wrong to me, with the error tending to go in the other direction, but it at least seems more likely than "Jill took I to the shop". To some extent the very specific form of "[X] and me" almost exists as an idiomatic expression in and of itself that obeys some weird rules.

[jayem]

It lines up with how a lot of people talk just fine, and as stated above is just a standard matter of subject and object distinction. The same thing applies to other paired pronouns (they/them, he/him, she/her), with I/me standing out mostly for not holding as firmly in certain regional dialects, much like who/whom.

And ye/you thou/thee, where only the original third person accusative,dative&genative survives.
(eta the wikipedia for Ye (the pronoun, not (th)e does have a table.)

[AvatarVecna]

Firstly, it's spelled "grammatical".

Secondly, this particular rule is less stupid than others, and is something you're far more likely to get called out on when writing than when talking. Here's the simple trick: if you're using a sentence and say something like "Jake and {me/I}", figure out whether 'me' or 'I' would've sounded right if Jake wasn't in the picture.

"Jake and {me/I} went to the park."

You probably won't get a lot of flak for saying "Jake and me" unless whoever you're talking to is a stickler about this stuff, but if you're writing, you'll get just as much flak for "Jake and me went to the park" as if you'd written "me went to the park" instead of "I went to the park".

"Mom got ice cream for Jake and {me/I}."

Again, verbally "for Jake and I" probably won't get too much flak, but writing "for Jake and I" will get you strung up just as quickly as if you'd written "Mom got ice cream for I".

Like, I said, it's not complicated.

[Vinyadan]

Latin was influential when it came to the King James, that's for sure, but a lot of English stuff actually comes from French, directly or as a calque (like using you instead of thou).

The "you and me" thing used as subject isn't an English exclusive. Italian has the same structure, although inverted (io e te), and I wouldn't be too surprised if it turned out that it's the same in other languages. But Latin doesn't: "ego et tu" not only requires that ego comes before tu, but also that they are both nominative (subject case), assuming that they are subject.

Very old example (Plautus, III-II century BC):

TR. Philolaches. PHILOL. Quid est? TR. <Et> ego et tu — PHILOL. Quid
et ego et tu? TR. Periimus.
PHILOL. Quid ita? TR. Pater adest. PHILOL. Quid ego ex te audio? 365
TR. Absumpti sumus.

Tr:

TRANIO: Philocales!

PHILOCALES: What's up?

TRANIO: You and me--

PHILOCALES: You and me, what?

TRANIO: You and me, we're dead!

PHILOCALES: But... why?!

TRANIO: You father's coming!

PHILOCALES: What... what did you just tell me?

TRANIO: We're ******.

Notice that Latin and Italian don't use subject pronouns unless there is a big reason, unlike English. So Latin would only have used "ego et tu" to e.g. imply a comparison or highlight differences between the two persons and the actions they would undertake, or to put it clear, like here, that the problem's there for both.

[halfeye]

It came from a long time ago, when people spoke proper. Now it's all "Americanisms" and jargon, and English is changing. There was a time when one refered to oneself as "one", but now it's all me.

[Jay R]

It comes from Old English, Latin, and pretty much every language English derives from.

In most languages, all nouns have different forms depending on how they are used. Latin has six, Russian has six, Greek has five, etc.

In English, they are mostly the same, and the only distinction for nouns is the possessive (horse / horse's).

But pronouns still have distinctions between the subjective, objective, and possessive (I/me/my).

[Lord Joeltion]

The "rule" is less of a "as it should be because I say it" and more of something to do with cases in a sentence, and sentence structure/organization.

'I' is a subjective pronoun, meaning that is the case you use for the subject in a sentence. "I worked all day"; "I was playing the fool"; "Actually, I don't". It's easy to use subjective pronouns in English and to recognize it, because they tend to be located at the beginning of a sentence, barring all clauses that usually come before the subject because of style (like adverbs).

'Me' on the other hand, is an objective pronoun, meaning that its function is to be the "recipient" of an action or the verb in question. Hence, sentences like "She ran towards me"; "He tried to fool me" don't make sense if you replace for the subjective case. Have in mind that in reality, subjective/objective cases aren't at all interchangeable because they refer to different functions within a sentence.

So, when you say "You and I, we love each other"; it is both 'you' and 'I' who are the subject of the sentence, because together they form 'we'. But when you say "It was you and me, my friend"; those 'you' and 'me' are objects in that sentence, because the subject is in reality performed by the impersonal pronoun 'it'. You don't say "It was we"; rather, the natural/proper form would be "It was us".

Bear in mind that there is a difference between "langue" and "parole"* and people don't usually take in mind correct usage of words in a sentence (in relation to what is being communicated, not in relation to only rules) and mistakes in the use of language are common to all languages across the world. It doesn't help that the most common pronoun in speech (you) is both phonetically and written the same; so people usually fall in the error of thinking they are using one case when in reality it's the other way around.

*Linguistics terminology. English uses "language" for both terms, but the difference would be "language in an abstract" (langue) and "language in its use" (parole).

ETA: Sure, we can discuss whether "langue" comes first or "parole" does. But the differentiation has more to do with proper analysis of language than with the argument between Language Determinism vs. Prescriptivism. In the case OP presented, people are just using language wrong, because they are meaning something different from what they actually say (those who use 'me' as a subjective pronoun, that is). It's not about the rules, but about what the word actually means

[Vinyadan]

About "you and I, we are family": I am not so sure that "you and I" are the subject. I mean, "we" is the subject. I am not sure of what "you and I" is: apposition? It's an explanation of who "we" is, and not the subject in its own right, although it is dependent on the subject. So you can write "We are family, you and I", which I don't think would be possible if "you and I" were the subject.

[VoxRationis]

Unlike rules such as the prohibition on split infinitives, this is an old one dating to Proto-Indo-European. Indo-European languages are, by and large, inflection-heavy and have a set of different forms (or cases) for nouns depending on grammatical function, in addition to a much larger set of different forms for verbs according to a series of factors such as person, number, tense, and mood. English has become much less inflected and much more analytic over time, replacing many endings native to Old English with auxiliary verbs and similar constructions (that is, we say "I go" and "I will go," adding another word for the future tense, rather than a bound morpheme, like Latin "io" and "ibo"). Distinctions like I/me are relics of this older system of inflections.

[Lord Joeltion]

About "you and I, we are family": I am not so sure that "you and I" are the subject. I mean, "we" is the subject. I am not sure of what "you and I" is: apposition? It's an explanation of who "we" is, and not the subject in its own right, although it is dependent on the subject. So you can write "We are family, you and I", which I don't think would be possible if "you and I" were the subject.

True, it's not the "real" subject*; but it is still a clause that is directly dependent on the actual subject in the sentence. In that case, the clause and the pronoun are interchangeable, so they accomplish/convey the same message; so their syntactical functions are comparable.

Take for instance, "The President of the United Playgrounds, Mr. Richard Burlew..." you can say one is the clause and the other is the actual subject, depending on the way you parse the sentence. You can interchange them, nevertheless; for it's the same to say "Mr. Richard Burlew, President of the United Playgrounds....". Whatever you decide, one is the subject, and the other is just a clarification of who he actually is.

*I'm taking the word "subject" as if you meant the nucleus of the subject (usually a noun clause or PP), and not the "complete" subject in a sentence; otherwise, I'd point you out that the "subject" in a sentence is by definition "everything that is not part the predicate"**. Depending on how you were taught parsing (or what theory your teacher has taught you), you may have a different approach on how to analyze structures and therefore, what comprises both predicate/subject.

**Again, one of the broadest definitions, but that's the most useful, given that in the absence of a predicate, there is no subject in the first place.

ETA: And anyway, the precedence of "we" before "you and I" has more to do with hierarchy; while in the other example, it's just about style. They still perform the same function (even if one example is interchangeable and the other isn't) and IMHO should be analyzed in a similar way.

Unlike rules such as the prohibition on split infinitives, this is an old one dating to Proto-Indo-European. Indo-European languages are, by and large, inflection-heavy and have a set of different forms (or cases) for nouns depending on grammatical function, in addition to a much larger set of different forms for verbs according to a series of factors such as person, number, tense, and mood. English has become much less inflected and much more analytic over time, replacing many endings native to Old English with auxiliary verbs and similar constructions (that is, we say "I go" and "I will go," adding another word for the future tense, rather than a bound morpheme, like Latin "io" and "ibo"). Distinctions like I/me are relics of this older system of inflections.

That is... and odd way to phrase it. I'd rather say "you" and "it" are 'new forms'* that are shoving a trend that blurs the division between grammar cases; not that all the other pronouns are "relics". Whatever English trends you take into account, inflections of pronouns are still a majority in English; and except for exceptional cases (who vs whom); they are still practical to have. I would say that, for I perspective, it's neat that I have different pronouns to express I thinking and I ideas.

*Not actually

[DavidSh]

That "You and I" almost acts as the topic in a topic-comment sentence. That's a feature of Japanese grammar, but I haven't seen it used to describe English.

[Peelee]

It lines up with how a lot of people talk just fine, and as stated above is just a standard matter of subject and object distinction. The same thing applies to other paired pronouns (they/them, he/him, she/her), with I/me standing out mostly for not holding as firmly in certain regional dialects, much like who/whom.

What's also interesting is that if used on their own I/me tends to conform more to "proper" usage. "Jenny and me joined the chess club" can see actual use, "Me joined the chess club" is an improper second language usage that almost never shows up with native speakers. "Jill took Justin and I to the shop" just sounds wrong to me, with the error tending to go in the other direction, but it at least seems more likely than "Jill took I to the shop". To some extent the very specific form of "[X] and me" almost exists as an idiomatic expression in and of itself that obeys some weird rules.

That's the shorthand I was taught in high school; simply remove everyone else who's with you from the sentence, and go with what is then obviously correct. "Me joined the chess club" is clearly wrong, so it's "Jenny and I joined the chess club," not "Jenny and me." Quick and dirty way of virtually always doing it right.

It came from a long time ago, when people spoke proper. Now it's all "Americanisms" and jargon, and English is changing. There was a time when one refered to oneself as "one", but now it's all me.

Language? Changing?!? Be still my heart!

Also, I would like a date range for when people spoke proper. No need to be precise, rough approximations are fine.

ETA:

Unlike rules such as the prohibition on split infinitives

I say this nearly every time the topic comes up, but I try to always split infinitives.

[danzibr]

like "Jenny and me joined the chess club" would be considered wrong. It should supposedly be "Jenny and I" despite the fact that that isn't how people talk.

Or "Jill took Justin and I to the shop" is wrong. It should be "Justin and me", even though that actually sounds slightly less right.

When I hear these, I die a little on the inside.

[BannedInSchool]

When I hear these, I die a little on the inside.

I also.

(And if you know how to use "I" and "me" then you can also get "who" and "whom" right.)

[Lord Joeltion]

Who do the bells toll for, again?

[danzibr]

I also.

(And if you know how to use "I" and "me" then you can also get "who" and "whom" right.)

+1

Also... I v. me gives an important difference in these sentences:
Bob likes Jane more than I.
Bob likes Jane more than me.

[Peelee]

+1

Also... I v. me gives an important difference in these sentences:
Bob likes Jane more than I.
Bob likes Jane more than me.

Ok, that made me laugh. Never thought about that before.

[Razade]

(And if you know how to use "I" and "me" then you can also get "who" and "whom" right.)

If the latter wasn't an archaic piece of needless dribble, sure.

[jayem]

I also.

Subj likes Obj more than 1stPSub/Obj

I wonder if there's a similar theoretical difference between 'I also', and 'me too' depending on the previous sentence.
E.g
Bob gave Alice some flowers
"I also" (gave Alice flowers)
(Bob gave) "me (flowers) too"

[halfeye]

I wonder if there's a similar theoretical difference between 'I also', and 'me too' depending on the previous sentence.
E.g
Bob gave Alice some flowers
"I also" (gave Alice flowers)
(Bob gave) "me (flowers) too"

There's at least some sort of conjunction (and, but ... (seems to work best with "and")) missing from that pair of sentences, and it still feels clunky even with it.

[Xyril]

like "Jenny and me joined the chess club" would be considered wrong. It should supposedly be "Jenny and I" despite the fact that that isn't how people talk.

I mean this mostly facetiously, but as one of the people who you apparently don't regard as "people," you should be careful where you spout your linguistic bigotry.

Here's something useful you learn in even the most basic book on linguistics: Humans have an instinct for learning language, and this instinct includes an innate desire to figure out and follow the rules of a language. That's why everyone has a sense of what "sounds right," even if that doesn't always match how others feel. We aren't formally taught grammar when we're young and learn to talk--instead, we instinctively try to infer the rules based on how people around us talk. Thus, what "sounds" right to us will generally reflect a unspoken consensus of how people around us all talk.

The formal rules of grammar we learn in school are essentially a best effort to understand and to articulate that consensus as reached by a particular group of English speakers (and perhaps more importantly, writers) during a period in time when distant groups of people couldn't regularly speak to each other regularly and there wasn't anything close to a universal consensus among all English speakers, even among more "formal" documents (such as the two or three major published English dictionaries).

Or "Jill took Justin and I to the shop" is wrong. It should be "Justin and me", even though that actually sounds slightly less right.

"Justin and me" probably sounds wrong to you because you, like many people, picked up the wrong lesson from English class. Your brain naturally has the capacity to recognize that nouns can be different if used as different parts of speech--for example, "I" as subject, and "me" as object. However, in English, we don't generally change the form of a noun based on the part of speech, so by the time we're in school, we don't always do a great job articulating the distinction when looking at pronouns like "I" or "they." So instead, what happens to a lot of folks like you, who come from communities where "Justin and me did something" is considered the norm, is that instead you start to develop a sense that "Justin and I," regardless of part of speech, is the formal, "proper" way to speak, while "Justin and me," regardless of part of speech, is the informal, vernacular way to speaking. At least, this is the sense I got from interacting with classmates who came from more rural parts of our county--whenever they wrote, or gave a speech for an assignment, they would always, always use "Justin and me," and when we were just hanging out, they would more of a mix, heavily favoring "Justin and me" maybe 80% or 90% of the time.

So how you want to speak is really up to you. In general, since we live in a far more connected world where every English speaker has to some extent the ability to participate in a massive linguistic group, we're probably moving steadily towards a single, close to universal consensus on English grammar. That consensus probably won't precisely follow any formal rules, but there will probably be a strong bias favoring either the formal rules of Standard American English or Standard British English, for two reasons. First, every native English speaker will most likely learn formal grammar from one of those systems in school. Even if your family speaks a local dialect, the English you learn in school will be the one thing you have in common with kids who grew up in an urban black neighborhood, Appalachia, Louisiana, or working class Boston. Two, for all the kids who grew up not speaking English, chances are the only English they'll learn at first is one of the standard dialects. If you're a kid in Egypt or China learning English from an American or British teacher, he's probably going to teach you the rules for standard American or British English, which will probably be what the published books and materials will be geared towards as well. He's not going to teach you Cockney or American English as spoken in the South side of Chicago.

So, if you want to communicate clearly, and to be taken seriously, particularly in more professional or formal settings, it probably helps to conform. However, speaking a less common, regional native dialect is also a good way to express your distinct identity and your connection with your local culture. In that sense, neither set of rules is wrong, it's simply a matter of what you're trying to accomplish and how you want to be perceived.

[2D8HP]

...Language? Changing?!? Be still my heart!

Also, I would like a date range for when people spoke proper....

Well, as the overwhelming majority of middle-aged men will tell you "If it wasn't invented when I was young/Didn't exist when I was in my prime" (NSFW language), "it's not proper/important".

[Xyril]

If the latter wasn't an archaic piece of needless dribble, sure.

Shouldn't it be "weren't?"

If you want to be a language-hipster like Razade, you could make the argument that a lot of things are "archaic, needless dribble," in terms of both how long ago these rules often originated and redundancy of communicating information. Latin has something like a half-dozen declensions for nouns. English basically has one, with the very narrow exception of a few pronouns that come in two forms. In terms of communicating, English has been doing decently enough using location within a sentence to indicate how the noun is being used. (That and, of course, using "of" or " 's" instead of the genitive form.) For example, if I say "Alice shanked Bob," we all know that Alice did the shanking because she comes before the verb, and Bob got the shanking because he came after. Thus, it would be redundant for me to have to say, "Alice-a [nominative form] shanked Bob-o [predicate form]" because I'm not actually communicating new information.

On the other hand, redundancy also gives you greater freedom, freedom that can be used to enhance communication or expression. For example, in my hypothetical language, you know who did the stabbing based on the verb form. Thus, if I say "Bob-a shanked Alice-o" it means Bob shanked Alice, which we can tell based on noun form. However, if I say, "Bob-a Alice-o shanked," it also means Bob did the shanking, because we care only about the noun form, and not the sentence arrangement. Think of what this means in terms of artistic expression. If you're a composer or a poet, and you want to match a certain meter or beat, you have the option of rearranging the sentence without changing the meaning. If you're telling a joke or a dramatic story, you can change the sentence in order to decide what piece of information comes last.

I can't think of a situation where the distinction between "who" and "whom" can be exploited in that way, and obviously Razade can't either, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done, or that it hasn't been done.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I can't think of a situation where the distinction between "who" and "whom" can be exploited in that way, and obviously Razade can't either, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done, or that it hasn't been done.

Well, as another of those people that Bohandas doesn't regard as people, "who" being used instead of "whom" sounds wrong to me, so by that (somehow?) overriding requirement for language, I now declare that everyone else needs to use "whom" properly, even if I can't poem.

GW

[Xyril]

Well, as another of those people that Bohandas doesn't regard as people, "who" being used instead of "whom" sounds wrong to me, so by that (somehow?) overriding requirement for language, I now declare that everyone else needs to use "whom" properly, even if I can't poem.

GW

Somehow I never developed the inherent sense of wrongness for "who" and "whom," the way I have for "and I" and "and me," so it takes deliberate effort on my part. I wonder if it's because I almost never hear "whom" (or for that matter, sentences that should have "whom" but have "who" instead) in spoken conversation.