A Word, Please: Correcting that voice in our heads from childhood

“Proper English” is usually optional. But it’s a valid option. Just like you sometimes want to look your best, at times you want to sound your best in person or on paper.

For people who want to speak and write “properly,” the most basic, possibly most important issue to master is illustrated in the following sentence: “Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with Bill and me.”

When you’re aiming to use the language well, the temptation to change that “me” to “I” is strong. For most of us, this urge is rooted in childhood. Every time we said, “Stephanie and me are going to school,” we were corrected. It’s “Stephanie and I,” we were told. After hearing that a thousand times, we were left with the impression that “I” is always the proper choice.

Not true. “Me” is often the best choice and, if you’re aiming for “proper English,” it’s often the only correct choice.

The trick is to figure out whether your pronoun is an object or a subject.

Subject pronouns perform the action of a verb. They are: I, you, he, she, it, we, they and who. I made coffee. You work hard. He walks fast. Who did this? In every case, subject pronouns do the action.

Object pronouns receive the action of a verb or serve as the object of a preposition. They are: me, you, him, her, it, us, them and whom.

In “Maggie shot Mr. Burns,” Maggie is doing the action. So she’s the subject of the verb. Mr. Burns is on the receiving end. That makes him the object. So when we replace his name with a pronoun, we use the object pronoun “him” instead of the subject pronoun “he”: Maggie shot him.

Objects of prepositions aren’t as widely understood. Prepositions are (mostly) little words like to, at, from, with, until and about that take objects: to the moon, at Laura, from June, with the Wilsons. When you understand that the moon, Laura, June, etc. are objects of those prepositions, you know that only an object pronoun can replace them: to it, at her, from me, with them.

Most of the time, you do this without thinking. You’d never say, “Bob directed his criticisms at she.” You’d say, “at her.” You’d never say, “This gift is from he.” You’d say, “This gift is from him.” You’d never say, “Thanks for taking the time to meet with I.” You’d use “me” instead.

But add another person to the sentence and people get confused, saying “Thanks for taking the time to meet with Bill and I” instead of the more correct “Thanks for taking the time to meet with Bill and me.” That voice in our heads from childhood — the one that says “I” is better — messes us up.

To make sure you always get these right, try the sentence without the other person: Thanks for taking the time to meet with me. Bill doesn’t change the case of the pronouns.

“Between” is also a preposition. That’s why it’s “between you and me” and not “between you and I.”

“Whom” can be trickier. Consider “I left my keys with the person who/whom I thought was the parking attendant.” You could conclude that “whom” is the object of the verb “thought,” or you could say that “who” is the subject of “was the parking attendant.” Both seem logical, but “who” is correct here because the object of the verb “thought” is a whole clause: “who was the parking attendant.” So just as you’d use a subject pronoun after “thought” in “I thought he was the parking attendant” you’d use the subject “who” in “the person who I thought was the parking attendant.”

Luckily, “whom” is considered formal English — stuffier than even “proper English” and usually unnecessary. In most cases, you can just use “who” as both a subject and an object pronoun.

June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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