Grammar thought for the week

My friend Jack and I are very cool. We set aside a whole Friday evening for discussing Grammar. And we enjoyed it. To add to the coolness, I said that I would continue to impart the art of grammar to Jack by emailing her a grammar thought-for-the-week every Friday in my free. I honestly can't think why people think teachers are nerds.

Anyway, for the benefit of you all, here is my thought for this week.

Welcome to Grammar Thought for the Week. This week's thought is brought to you by the letters I, M and E.

People often think that they should use 'I' instead of 'me' all the time if they are to be absolutely correct. However, if they stripped the sentence down, it would not make sense to do so:

If I was to invite you out with me, I would say, "Come out with me tonight!" If I was to add Toby in, the sentence would remain the same but with Toby added: "Come out with me and Toby tonight!". There is no logical reason for changing the 'me' to an 'I' (as many people do because they have lost track of the flow of the sentence and they think they're being super-correct* - often, people say things like, "Come out with Toby and I tonight!").

What is correct, however is to keep the 'I' in a sentence where it would have originally been an 'I', e.g. "I will go" becomes, "Toby and I will go", not "Me and Toby will go"

So don't change the pronoun from its original state.

Incidentally, did you notice how 'me' feels more natural going before the other person's name and 'I' would feel positively wrong unless it was after the other person's name?

*There is, of course, no such thing as super-correct when it comes to grammar. When people try to be super-correct, they just reveal their ignorance and/or lack of imagination. E.g. "All persons must check-in," (instead of, "Everyone must check-in," or, "All [specific plural noun, e.g. 'passengers'] must check-in,") equals crap.

By the way, our Friday evening was a lot more soulful than this as it linked grammar to literature and culture. Although I don't think that's going to help me in the cool stakes.