I AND ME

I and me in modern English

I and Me in modern English

Introduction

The purpose of this discussion is to elaborate on the findings of an original research that made use of the British National Corpus (BNC). The subject of this analysis is the choice between I and me in modern English. The discussion sheds light on the subject through a multidimensional perspective in order to bring forth the intricacies of the use of I and me in modern day English language.

Discussion

The subject pronoun I and the object pronoun me are sometimes confused in informal speech, especially in the phrases It's me and Between you and I. After verbs and prepositions, the object pronoun me should be used; before verbs, the subject pronoun I should be used:

They have invited my mother, my father, and me [not I]to the wedding.

He works with Mary and me [not I].

My friend and I [not me]will help. Confusion and errors occur in the highest places:

She could give a better answer than that to I and to my honourable friends (said during Prime Minister's Question Time).

These problems seldom arise when the pronoun stands alone; any confusion may therefore, be resolved by mentally removing the other item(s) and assessing the result:

They have invited me to the wedding.

He works with me.

I will help.

The verb to be, according to grammatical convention, is an exception: in formal contexts, It is me is unacceptable to a few cautious users, who prefer It is I. However, in informal contexts the idiomatic It's me is generally considered to be more natural than the pedantic It's I and is acceptable to most users (Jespersen, 2003). Many users avoid the phrase between you and I in all contexts, although it is often heard in vernacular speech. Between you and me, which conforms to grammatical convention, is the preferred usage. See also as; it; let; myself; pronouns; than.

There are many different definitions of 'I', 'identity' and 'self in the social sciences and philosophy, not to mention further afield in the religions, popular psychologies and mystical belief systems of the world. Self-identity arises when the social agent turns their perception back upon their self in an effort to inspect, evaluate, prepare, and control their self, and so on. The image of a dog chasing its own tail is a rewarding one here, both because it reminds us that the reflexive relationship of self to self unfolds through time (it is an activity and thus processual), namely that the self will never catch up with itself. Every step that the dog takes in anticipation of getting closer to the tail necessarily whips the tail around, further away (Murphy, 2004). So it is with the self. Note, however, that this is not because the self is mysterious in any way - we are likening it to a dog's tail after all! - but rather because of the simple logical, impossibility of thought thinking about itself. When I reflect upon my activities, my life, self or thought, I inevitably take a step ...