# Doubt, me and him or he?



## Artix

This just came up to my mind, do you say me and him or he?


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## Ratters26

What is the context?


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## Artix

Like me and he/him are best friends.


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## Reef Archer

_Him_, definitely.


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## Bevj

He and I are best friends.

'Me and him' cannot be the subject of a sentence.


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## Alxmrphi

Bevj said:


> 'Me and him' cannot be the subject of a sentence.



It can and is in most of England, it's not standard, but non-standard, and very very valid.
Quite a lot of linguistics would argue it's completely standard and acceptable.
The rule that's thrown around has been extensively shown to be a creation from the time when scholars wanted English to behave like Latin, which doesn't allow this rule.

If you have a look for exceptions to the rules of coordinated subjects, you'll find lots of info (and arguments, which is natural (sadly) I guess).


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## Ratters26

You could use him.

However, if you and this man are the subject of the sentence you need subject pronouns which are 'he and I'.

So to be completely correct I _believe you say 'he and I are best friends' 

Jonny_


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## Ratters26

Bevj said:


> He and I are best friends.
> 
> 'Me and him' cannot be the subject of a sentence.




Oh, you beat me to it!


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## Bevj

I agree that 'Me and him' is often heard in informal speech (I say it myself on occasions), but it's still not grammatically correct and it would be better for a learner of English to avoid it


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## Alxmrphi

Bevj said:


> I agree that 'Me and him' is often heard in informal speech (I say it myself on occasions), but it's still not grammatically correct and it would be better for a learner of English to avoid it



I can accept it's not deemed a prestige form, but it's not incorrect.
If your attempt is to teach learners of English how English-speaking people speak, then I think this is a very important point for learners, and should be explained/taught and used, otherwise they wouldn't be talking idiomatic English.

Having these poor people walk round trying to fit in while listening to all these rules about having to say "I and Bill are going to the shop" is just nonsensical.


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## panjandrum

Bevj said:


> I agree that 'Me and him' is often heard in informal speech (I say it myself on occasions), but it's still not grammatically correct and it would be better for a learner of English to avoid it


True, but the advanced learner of English should be aware that many, many people will talk about "me and Amy...." in subject position.  I don't say it. I don't like it. But it is becoming normal spoken English.



Alxmrphi said:


> ...
> Having these poor people walk round trying to fit in while listening to all these rules about having to say "I and Bill are going to the shop" is just nonsensical.


_Bill and I are going to the shop._
Up to the present, this form is not creating any problems ... for me.
I know that anyone younger than about 34 will routinely say "_Me and Bill are going to the shop._"


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## Alxmrphi

panjandrum said:


> _Bill and I are going to the shop._
> Up to the present, this form is not creating any problems ... for me.
> I know that anyone younger than about 34 will routinely say "_Me and Bill are going to the shop._"



Exactly but people often don't understand the grammar rules they throw around, leading to confusion that ends up with foreign speakers saying things like this. I know from experience with foreigners who demand they're right that "I and <X> + verb" constructions are valid.


> I know that anyone younger than about 34 will routinely say "_Me and Bill are going to the shop._"


34? A bit specific
But you're totally right.

The people that argue for this rule are usually the people that don't even use it consistently themselves and hypercorrect to use *I* as much as possible "_She bought Jane and I a new car_", i.e. they try to explain the rule that it has to be a subject form, provide a bit of (loose) logic, yet then use subject forms when object forms are required, leading to a complete contradiction in their other explanations. Some people just love using "I", that's all it seems to I.


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## JamesM

But is casual spoken English the best thing to learn?  I can tell you that here in the U.S. in an office environment "Me and him will work on this together" would raise some eyebrows, despite the confused state of English here. 

"He and I will work on this together" might sound a little stiff in a casual setting but it doesn't have the same downside potential as "Me and him will work on this together" has in a more formal setting.

Personally, I would rather learn formal language and then introduce casual speech in a language I'm learning rather than learn casual language and have to adapt to formal language on the fly, with its potential consequences.


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## Alxmrphi

> But is casual spoken English the best thing to learn?


Yes, if that's what you aim to do, talk to English people.
I didn't mean to imply only to present one possibility, I meant the whole controversey needs to be taught, either way one option won't fit in every social situation, it's either ok in the office environment and way too formal for casual conversation, or normal in casual conversation and odd in your office situation. So to be a competent speaker of English is to know the argument and be aware of it, otherwise it's irresponsible on behalf of the teacher, which is why I have such a problem with people demanding learners of English need to have this alternative hidden from them.

No office I've ever worked in would have people raising eyebrows over a "me + and" subject.
It's absolutely and completely normal and natural for me, and for many other linguistics. John McWhorter has an_ excellent_ explanation of the misconceptions of speakers and the origins of this rule, which he calls the "Billy and me" rule. Definitely recommended to all. This rule belongs with the split-infinitive one, in that heap of invented rules.


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## JamesM

Does the same hold true for "him and me will..." or "me and him will..." ?

If so, maybe it's true that American English is more formal in its expectations these days than British English, at least in a business setting.  Honestly, it could easily be enough to disqualify you from getting a public-facing position in a corporate setting here if you said it during an interview.


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## scrotgrot

In all cases raised, we would just say _we_ or _I ... with him_, to be fair.

It is almost unheard of, for me, in real conversation, to hear subject pronouns used in combination.  With _me and him_ in subject position, _me _and _him _are being used tonically, similarly to when you say _who did it?  Me_, as if _me_ and _him_ are just specialised names like _Alice_ and _Bob_.


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## JamesM

I really wonder if this is a difference between AE and BE these days.  Take a look at a Google news search for "he and I":

http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q="he+and+I"+site:*.com

Granted, there's a misuse of it in one article on the first page where it should be "him and me" (and a notable hypercorrection by Denise Richards a few pages down), but look at the range of personalities using "he and I": athletes, porn stars, musicians.  It's not uncommon here at all.


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## Alxmrphi

> Granted, there's a misuse of it in one article on the first page where  it should be "him and me" (and a notable hypercorrection by Denise  Richards a few pages down), but look at the range of personalities using  "he and I": athletes, porn stars, musicians.  It's not uncommon here at  all.


I think the total of 934 shows that, out of all of Google's archived news stories, it's not so common.


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## panjandrum

Alxmrphi said:


> ...
> 34? A bit specific
> ...


OK, I confess that 34 is quite personal.
My son, aged 37, would not say about "Me and ...."
My daughter, aged 35, uses "Me and ..." naturally, but not all the time.  It depends on social context.
My other daughter, aged 33, uses "Me and ..." routinely except in writing.

That's why I placed the boundary at 34


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## JamesM

Alxmrphi said:


> I think the total of 934 shows that, out of all of Google's archived news stories, it's not so common.



Unless you compare it to the same search for "me and him" and find only 183 or "him and me"  and get 132 (some of which will be correct uses of the pair).  Keep in mind that Google News only shows recent articles.

My point is that scotgrot said "It is almost unheard of, for me, in real conversation, to hear subject pronouns used in combination" and you were saying much the same thing.  I don't think that's true here.  You hear both, but quite a few people use "He and I" in any formal setting, even in conversation.


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## panjandrum

Alxmrphi said:


> I think the total of 934 shows that, out of all of Google's archived news stories, it's not so common.


In Google News, 934 is quite a lot.


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## Alxmrphi

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not used, maybe it's  generational. Either way my argument was about the claims behind the  logic for the rule. If we all told kids born now that it's wrong to end a  sentence with the word "orange", in a generation or two we would have a  world of speakers who have been conditioned to truly feel there is  something wrong when they hear "orange" at the end of a word, it will  jarr to them and seem quite uneducated. This is the nature of language  rules and how artificial they can be.

So having people raise eyebrows and disqualify candidates is natural, it  doesn't mean there's any backing to the idea it wasn't just an invented  rule based on comparisons with ancient languages of the past, you could  engineer a situation where things sound awful just because people are  conditioned to believe it and have been raised being told as such. So  you have people that use this form in the UK, definitely. I didn't say  it didn't exist, and considering we're using news articles, where people  are trying to be their most formal, to look at usage among the  population is not really a good idea. Besides being here on WR, I don't  write, maybe on facebook or a few text messages, many people don't do  formal writing and what must be well over 90% of language use is spoken.

To recap, I never said people don't use that form here, they do... but not many people. In the vast vast minority in my experience, anyone who spoke like that naturally I wouldn't expect to have many friends, it's just not natural to hear that in daily conversation. Formal writing, and writing for news articles is a skill that people train for, to write differently to the way they speak. The conception that formal language is a representation of how people use English is quite flawed for me. If I was doing descriptive linguistics looking at how people use language, I wouldn't be looking in policy documents or legal statutes, or even published news articles.

What I've been saying is, for me, and what I believe.. most people would not use the nominative in a coordinated subject in normal speech, normal English usage. Normal English usage is not represented in writing where people make a career out of it. It'd be interesting to look at TV material and create a survey across the US/UK about language written for the screen, to seem natural, also inclusive of reality TV which contains spontaneous speech. I wonder if I can access any sort of spoken corpus. I honestly don't imagine writers would use "He and I" forms unless they were trying to highlight the way we were meant to feel about this character as a viewer.


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## JamesM

> What I've been saying is, for me, and what I believe.. most people would not use the nominative in a coordinated subject in normal speech, normal English usage. Normal English usage is not represented in writing where people make a career out of it.



But many of those articles are directly quoting the interviewee. I'm saying that your assertion is too broad and you may not have sufficient experience with *spoken* American English in a formal setting to make that call.



> It'd be interesting to look at TV material and create a survey across the US/UK about language written for the screen, to seem natural, also inclusive of reality TV which contains spontaneous speech.



I agree. It would.

Look, here are a few examples (not a scientific sample, but still transcripts of reality TV):

The Biggest Loser transcript, aired Nov. 24,2009

"before he went on the ranch, he and I as a couple just really weren't connected anymore"

"And to my wife--now with my health problems in check, um, go back and give her what she and I both want, and that is to expand our family."

(no "him and me" or "me and him" in the transcript.)

The Real Housewives of New York City, Friday, May 7, 2010

00:27:42 I texted twitter.  
00:27:43 - Yeah, me too, this morning.  
00:27:45 " - she and I actually talked for about 45 minutes this afternoon.  
00:27:50 - She knows. my girl knows.


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## Alxmrphi

> But many of those articles are directly quoting the interviewee. I'm  saying that your assertion is too broad and you may not have sufficient  experience with spoken American English in a formal setting to make that  call.


Woops, I never clarified. I in no way, shape or form claim to make any judgements on American English. It's not often when I say "English" in the real world it is inclusive of America, so that was never intended. I would not say that and try to be inclusive of English over the whole planet, only of my form of English  

As for the quote, it's well known that people don't speak naturally if they're being interviewed, it's like "job interview speech".
That's why many sociolinguists have to trick their informants into getting the information, avoiding the observer's paradox.

I actually managed to find a very informative page about the use of this construction in TV writing, based in America.
It's very interesting! Obviously I reject the sentiment and his need to be angry, but it does show it's being used in American TV by people who are representing respectful occupations
Related article with more examples here. Those examples (with the object declension of the pronouns) sound categorically and completely normal/natural to me.


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## JamesM

Sorry, I edited my post above.  Please check there for examples from reality TV.

Notable to me in the first article you linked:



> On the other hand, unless there’s something about the character’s personality to make him deliberately flaunt the rules of standard English, I would have a native English speaker who has completed at least eight years of formal education use the pronouns I and me correctly.





> I might put the construction “Me and him went to the movies” into the mouth of a privately-educated teenager who wanted to make his parents cringe, but I wouldn’t give the line to an assistant district attorney–unless I meant for the reader to question her credibility.



(underline added by me -- this was my earlier point)



> Woops, I never clarified. I in no way, shape or form claim to make any judgements on American English. It's not often when I say "English" in the real world it is inclusive of America, so that was never intended. I would not say that and try to be inclusive of English over the whole planet, only of my form of English .



On an English language board that's a distinction worth making.  Adding British to English would help a great deal here.


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## Myridon

JamesM said:


> Keep in mind that Google News only shows recent articles.


For what it's worth: If you click on the word Archives on the left, the number jumps to 27,300.


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## Alxmrphi

> The Biggest Loser transcript, aired Nov. 24,2009
> 
> "before he went on the ranch, he and I as a couple just really weren't connected anymore"
> "And to my wife--now with my health problems in check, um, go back and  give her what she and I both want, and that is to expand our family."
> (no "him and me" or "me and him" in the transcript.)
> 
> 00:27:45 " - she and I actually talked for about 45 minutes this afternoon.


From your site I can find:

(link) 00:19:06: *Me and all my girlfriends* call tracy the organic plastic surgeon because she can identify exactly what your problem is and she can identify exactly how to change it.
(link) 00:02:19: [wrapping paper rustling] -* Me and my boyfriend*, grant, have been datingfor about a year.00:04:49: *Me and him *could have worked stuff out in the beginning. 
00:15:51: *Me and my brother *got into a big altercation. 
00:32:46:  If *me and grant *were to get married tomorrow or if he was to ask me, I would probably say yes. 
00:38:51:  Well, last night, jo calls me, and he's like, "*me and my dad* got in a fight, and we have " I'm not gonna pick up and move to new jersey. 
00:41:50: The problem is that* me and my mom* aren't talking. ​(link) 00:07:40: My first album didn't come out uni was 26 so for so long I ignored that talent, it took a bit of luck because the people I was with daily was -- a personal friend of mine, you know, went to jail for 12 years and *me and him* would be together every single day, so I know that that same fate was awaiting me -- we would have got picked up at the same time had I not been away or been in london somewhere pursuing music, I would have been in jail for 12 years.
(link) 00:15:16: And then for some reason, i noticed that* me and him*, we started, like, I don't know -- >> not having the same connection. 
(link) 00:11:07:* Me and him* finished on good terms.
(link) 00:27:09: *Me and him* both have our shirts off.
(link) 00:35:23: *Me and him*, we're a church, and I would begin to shove people out of my life and I would begin, instead of letting them in and being able to have great relationships and people who can really love me and people that i can love back, and I would build these walls around my life and i would say you can't come into my life because you're not going hurt me.

From Tyra Banks show, E. News, Judge someone-or-other, 5-min makeover.

It's not really getting us anywhere, we both know both forms exist, one is stigmatised in a formal context, the other is stigmatised in a casual context.
The younger generation are exclusively using a new form, and I have no doubt this will become standard in the future, universally accepted. It's already complete where I am, now we're just waiting for time to pass on and the new generation of linguists and grammar writers to voice their opinion of the acceptance of the construction. It's linguistic change in progress.

Actually, that last paragraph is not really true, this usage has been used already for hundreds of years, it was the 19th century grammarians that decided to voice criticism and come up with this rule, but, as always, invented rules don't usually work, only natural linguistic change is unstoppable


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## Alxmrphi

What about in your cleft constructions, what pronoun do you use there?

It was <> that opened the door?


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## JamesM

But I'm not saying no one says "me and him" in American English.  I'm saying that it* isn't *a very "tiny, tiny minority" here that say "he and I", which is your experience and scotgrot's experience there, apparently.


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## JamesM

Alxmrphi said:


> What about in your cleft constructions, what pronoun do you use there?
> 
> It was <> that opened the door?



Let's stick to one topic per thread.


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## Alxmrphi

> But I'm not saying no one says "me and him" in American English.  I'm  saying that it isn't a very tiny, tiny minority here that say "he and  I", which is your experience and scotgrot's experience there.


I believe you!
I've never been to the States so I would not have anything besides TV to go off. 
I'll bear it in mind that the acceptability is more broad and not so stigmatised in AE.


> Let's stick to one topic per thread.


I didn't mean to start a new topic, I was just trying to gauge the range of the switch, if this would behave differently to just a coordinated subject.
Actually I suppose it is a bit different, question withdrawn.


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## JamesM

(I've got to get out of the habit of editing and appending to posts.  This belongs in its own post.  )

As I said before, if someone who is learning English asks me which to say, I think it's better to start with "he and I" if he is planning to move to the U.S., get a job and function here.  He will pick up "me and him" with friends as he goes, in my opinion.  They will cut him some slack (or they won't, but I think they will because he's from another country.)  However, if he has learned English and has learned only casual English he won't be in the same position to get corrections on the language in a formal setting.  That's not common here.  Instead, his English will sound flawed and not adequate for formal use, at least in the U.S.

I think you're more likely to be corrected in a casual situation to conform with casual English here (usually in the form of teasing)  than you are to be corrected in a formal situation.  Given that you've got built-in tutors for casual English but not for formal English here, it's more valuable to start with formal English.


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## Alxmrphi

From an applied linguistics / teaching point of view, I think you're totally right.
It's just the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to my thoughts about learning English it's to be able to communicate and sound normal in another language, comparable to the casual non-use of subjunctive forms in Romance languages, the students need to know them, but then need to know when not to use them. So in that sense, given the nature of language snobbery that exists, it's the wisest thing to do. But the alternative isn't wrong, just non-prestige (which was and has been the sole point I wanted to express in this thread).


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## Pedro y La Torre

JamesM said:


> Does the same hold true for "him and me will..." or "me and him will..." ?
> 
> If so, maybe it's true that American English is more formal in its expectations these days than British English, at least in a business setting.  Honestly, it could easily be enough to disqualify you from getting a public-facing position in a corporate setting here if you said it during an interview.



Living in Canada, I do get the impression North AmE speakers make less grammatical mistakes than us British/Irish speakers in everyday speech. How true to form that impression is, is, of course, another matter.

Saying "me and him are going to work on that", for example, would come very naturally to me, though it is utterly wrong.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

If, at my place of employment, a subordinate submitted a report that contained the sentence "Him and me will work on this project", I would immediately return it for correction. I would never, ever consider forwarding it to a superior because it would be ridiculed. If I had forwarded it, and it were ridiculed, I would consider such ridicule -- both of the original author for writing so unacceptable a sentence, and of me for approving it -- to be entirely proper and justified. It is entirely outside my own speech patterns to begin a sentence with "Him and me did XYZ...", and I would be thoroughly ashamed not to notice something so grossly and unacceptably illiterate in the submissions of a subordinate.

I will also point out to you that by "my place of employment" I am not speaking of a university, or a center for linguistic scholars, but an urban police department staffed by ordinary cops. I doubt there is anyone above the rank of sergeant in the NYPD who would not be embarassed to find that in an official report he or she had ever written a sentence beginning "Me and him did X."


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## panjandrum

I finally found threads where this topic has been discussed before.  Here are some of them, with some key extracts (well I think they are key extracts ).

Me and her went to the pub.
[#2] It is interesting, though, that no one in the UK, even in such obscure  places as "up north," says "Me went to the pub" or "Her went to the  pub."  It's only in the combined form that the masses are slipping into  the object-case.

[#23] Pronoun confusion is very frequent in English
No-one says _Me went to the pub_ but
_Me and Mary went to the pub_ is very common,...

[#28]I suggest that the _me and Andrew_ construction in some way,reflects the familliar confusion, aired in many threads (in some context, should I say _me and Andrew, Andrew and me, I and Andrew, Andrew and I_) that has in part been created by generations of insistence on _Andrew and I, not Andrew and me_.  It involves only the first person pronouns.

The _me and her_ construction is a step further away from the norm.

[#45] Similarly, those of my acquaintance who habitually talk about me and  Andrew, me and Angie, going to the pub would never dream of writing that  in a formal report or saying it in court. 		

_<< Weary after reading through that one, I'll have another coffee and look at the others  >>_


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## panjandrum

Here we go:

*I/me: Tina and <I, me> will be presenting the project...
*
And for a more general discussion, and links to more and more threads:
I or me? -      Than me or than I?; than him or than he?; etc, etc

I got tired of quoting bits.


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## Mar Rojo

> I agree that 'Me and him' is often heard in informal speech (I say it  myself on occasions), but it's still not grammatically correct and it  would be better for a learner of English to avoid it



Most learners I know would like to sound a "native" as possible. "me and x are" is very common in spoken English, and is expected in many casual contexts.


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## Andygc

panjandrum said:


> [#2] It is interesting, though, *that no one in the UK*, even in such obscure  places as "up north," says "Me went to the pub" or "Her went to the  pub."  It's only in the combined form that the masses are slipping into  the object-case.


Definitely an untrue statement.

In obscure places such as rural North Devon and the depths of Cornwall that form - "her did ..." "her went ..." -  most certainly does exist and is by no means unusual. I heard it just a couple of weeks ago when a man in his 60s was talking to me about his wife: " 'Er don't like going far ". (but not "me don't" when it could possibly be "Us dun't like going far")

Another recent example " 'Er went to see 'er sister last week. "


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## Alxmrphi

> Definitely an untrue statement. [..]
> (but not "me don't" when it could possibly be "Us dun't like going far")


_Us don't_ is a dialect feature of the North East, too.
You're also right about Cornish, too. The dialect poet Bernard Moore has examples of oblique subjects in one of his poems:"_Her _lives in a cottage... [..] _Her_'ve got four children ... [..] and a room for drawin' where _her _doesn't draw, An' other _us don't_ know what they'm for".​(Taken from "Syntactic Distinctions within Present Day English", Deynall 2007 [link])

But these are quite isolated examples truly belonging to regional dialect usage. The coordinated subjects thing is present in casual speech in people from every corner of the UK, and as mentioned before is often required in casual speech. A statement which I fully agree with, and argue again it is correct but non-prestige.


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## pob14

I work at a large government law office.  We've been interviewing for a new attorney in recent weeks.

Is it "wrong" to dress in a polo shirt and jeans?  Of course not.  I'm going to dress that way tomorrow, because we have Casual Friday and I don't have court.  But if one of our candidates showed up for an interview dressed that way, he wouldn't get the job.  It's not appropriate.

Similarly, is it "wrong" to say "Me and him went to the movies?"  Maybe not.  But again, if someone we were interviewing for a job said, "Me and him tried a case the other day," we would all have a good laugh about it afterwards and throw his resume in the trash.  It's not appropriate for a formal setting.

I understand that language changes with usage.  I also understand that there many people, often in positions of power, that believe in grammar rules and will judge you on the way you speak.  Our friends who are learning the language need to know that, so that we don't inadvertently put them at a disadvantage.

"Teach the controversy?"  Okay (as much as those are fighting words to me in a much different context).  But also teach them that saying "he and I" will NEVER cause them a problem, but saying "me and him" might.


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