Me, myself and I
I’ve had a lot of thought leadership pieces come across my desk of late. While there are many interesting ideas in these pieces, one problem is popping up across the board: confusion about whether to use ‘I’ or ‘me’.
TL;DR
There also seems to be a bit of confusion about when to use myself, but we can deal with that in a bit.
Knowing which word to do when is all about knowing how pronouns work. Because parts of speech are complicated and can be confusing, here’s a recap:
Pronouns are used in place of a noun. A pronoun replaces a noun but refers to it (see what I did there?).
“Jade went to the shop; she bought a chocolate.”
There are six kinds of pronouns (some people separate reflexive and intensive, which makes seven, but I prefer to group those together):
| Type of pronoun | What it does | Examples |
| Personal | Refers to a particular person or thing | I, me, she, he, they |
| Demonstrative | Points to a noun | this, that, those |
| Indefinite | Refers to unspecified things | somebody, many, all |
| Interrogative | Asks a question | who, what, when |
| Reflective | Links one clause or phrase to another | who, whom, which |
| Reflexive | Refers to the subject and/or emphasises it | myself, himself |
It me! Or is it I?
We’re mostly told that the convention is “always ‘and I’”. Although this is true in many cases, it’s not true in all cases.
Me and I are both first person singular pronouns.
First person: takes the place of the name of the speaker
Singular: takes the place of one person or thing
The difference between the two is that ‘I’ is the subjective case and ‘me’ is the objective case. This means that ‘I’ is the subject of the verb, while ‘me’ is the object of the verb or preposition.
“I saw the dog.”
“I was bitten by an ant.”
“The dog bit me.”
“Believe me.”
There are two simple rules that can help you decide whether to use ‘I’ or ‘me’:
1. Where there are two nouns or pronouns, delete the first and see if the sentence still makes sense.
“My mom and I love bargain hunting.”
“David fetched Tom and me in his new car.”
2. Use ‘me’ in place of ‘I’ when the pronoun follows a verb or preposition.
“Between you and me, I prefer chocolate cake.”
‘Between’ is a preposition, so ‘me’ is correct
One more rule about ‘I’ and ‘me’: it is always ‘and I’, never ‘I and’, but it can be either ‘me and’ or ‘and me’ .
I’m very into myself
‘Myself’ is a reflexive pronoun; this means that it refers to the subject of the sentence. It is used when the object of a preposition or pronoun is the same as the subject of the sentence.
“I ended up driving myself.”
“I managed to implicate myself in the doughnut heist.”
Besides acting as a reflexive pronoun, ‘myself’ can also act as an intensifier. In these cases, it is used after the subject to emphasize it.
“I myself can cook the food.”
Important to remember: never use ‘myself’ after a preposition of place. You must use ‘me’ in that case.
“He jumped in front of me.”
“She sat beside me.”
“The dog lay next to me.”
TL;DR
- ‘I’ is a subject and ‘me’ is an object, consider which part of the sentence you’re working with to decide which to use.
- If there are two pronouns or a noun and a pronoun, delete the first and see if the sentence still makes sense
- Use ‘me’ when the pronoun follows a verb or preposition
- ‘Myself’ is used later on in a sentence that contains ‘I’
Featured image courtesy of Plush Design Studio on Unsplash
