<p>Which is correct here, “I” or “me”:</p>
<p>"Just as Mr. Smith used stories from his childhood to help my young friends and I/me understand The Great Depression, . . . "</p>
<p>The voice in my head of my high school English teacher tells me that “me” is correct, but it just sounds wrong.</p>
<p>Me. Take friends out of context. He read stories to me. Always take out of context and see what sounds right. My mother’s trick :)</p>
<p>Yes, that is the same trick I was taught by an English professor. Drop the other person and how does it sound.</p>
<p>Yes, “me”.</p>
<p>The word you’re looking for is the object of the sentence. You’re confused because you think it’s the subject to the verb “understand.” It’s not.</p>
<p>It would sound better if you reversed “me” and “young friends,” so the friends come second.</p>
<p>While I don’t claim to be a teacher or a grammarian, I have done well in English. Saying “me and my young friends” as VH suggests sounds terrible to my ear. May be wrong, but wasn’t the courtesy of listing one’s friends before oneself also a part of good grammar?
Me and my friends went bowling, or
My friends and me went bowling. or
My friends and I went bowling.<br>
I choose the third one.</p>
<p>In fact, permit me to respectfully diasagree with previous posters on the Op’s query. I prefer “my young friends and I understand…”.</p>
<p>I like travel and swimcatt’s logic(posts 2 and 3), but I get a different answer than they. Ok, drop the other person. Now it becomes "I/me understand The Great Depression, . . . " using this reasoning, clearly “I” is the better choice.</p>
<p>^ “Me” is the object of the verb “helped.” If you simplified the sentence to
He (Mr. Smith) helped me.
it becomes more clear. You would not be inclined to say “He helped I.”</p>
<p>In the sentences above about bowling, the pronoun is the subject of the verb. (“I went bowling” would be the simplified version.)</p>
<p>“My young friends and I understand” *would *be correct grammar **if **that were (subjunctive mood, another topic) the earlier parts of the sentence. But you can’t ignore what came before.</p>
<p>I went to what was called “grammar school” back in the fifties and learned how to diagram sentences. It was fun to me. I have taught grammar in elementary grades since but nobody diagrams any more.</p>
<p>younghoss, you are confused about the structure of the sentence. The second clause (with the speaker and friends) is the object of the verb “help”. That is why the choice of pronoun should be “me” not “I”.</p>
<p>Try this:</p>
<p>Mr. Smith helped me understand…</p>
<p>Mr. Smith helped my friends and me understand…</p>
<p>Mr. Smith used the stories to help my friends and me understand…</p>
<p>Just as Mr. Smith used stories from his childhood to help my young friends and me understand The Great Depression, . . .</p>
<p>Me is definitely the correct choice. Why it “sounds wrong” to some is probably because understand follows the pronoun me, and the ear thinks “I” should precede the verb understand. However, “my friends” and “me” are really the objects of “help.” “Understand” is actually an infinitive with the “to” dropped. You could also correctly say “help me TO understand.”</p>
<p>Oh, the good 'ol days of diagramming sentences.</p>
<p>As several people have explained, “me” is correct in the OP’s sentence. This is not a matter of opinion.</p>
<p>You took the words right out of my mouth, weatherga.</p>
<p>JEM, I remember we had separate grammar books, all through lower school. Thick ones.
Younghoss, when you break down the sentence, it represents, as HappyMom wrote: He helped my friends, he helped me.</p>
<p>You would never say:
Just as Mr. Smith used stories from his childhood to help I understand The Great Depression…</p>
<p>You have to work it.<br>
In diagramming, we’d say “Mr Smith” = noun, helped = verb/action and then ask “helped what or whom?” Helped **me[b/]. You need the object pronoun.</p>
<p>And yes, plenty of people will judge.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Try again. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, you’re wrong here, but at least you used “they” correctly in this sentence!</p>
<p>‘I’ is the subject form of the pronoun; ‘me’ is the object form. In written English, you use the object form after the infinitive verb ‘to help’ in “Just as Mr. Smith used stories from his childhood to help my young friends and me understand The Great Depression.” …to help me…</p>
<p>However, most Americans, including my D (university educated), will say, “Me and my friends are doing this…” As a linguist and English teacher, I teach this as a spoken form and don’t judge. Who says, “My friends and I did sake bombs last night”?</p>
<p>Regarding the second example, “I like travel and swimcatt’s logic(posts 2 and 3), but I get a different answer than they”, in written English, this is accepted, but you can keep going and write, “than they do.” However, in spoken English, most of us would say, “a different answer than them”, just as we would say, “My sister is taller than me,” not “taller than I am”. </p>
<p>Spoken and written English have many variations. Another example, ‘everybody’ is technically singular, so you should say, “Everybody is bringing his or her own lunch”, but most of us would say, “Everybody is bringing their own lunch.” It’s all OK.</p>
<p>Good discussion. I like reviewing basic grammar rules. It’s a shame English teachers don’t have time to teach ‘old school’ grammar anymore. When you learn parts of speech and diagramming, you learn ‘hard and fast’ grammar rules!
“Everybody is bringing their own lunch.” is simply incorrect. Maybe it’s acceptable in spoken English in some circles, but at the end of the day…it’s incorrect.</p>
<p>Re: tptshorty
In spoken Engkish one might say: He ain’t there yet" Though we might say it, and while it may be common, that doesn’t make it correct grammar.
Some might say: “Me and my friends went boozing” but that doesn’t mean it is correct.</p>
<p>I will bow to the opinion of those others here that “my friends and me” may be correct but sounds odd, but I cannot agree that “me and my friends is correct”.</p>
<p>Rutgers, if your workplace is fairly casual and then a few bigwigs arrive from out-of-town in black suits for a meeting, the people who look out of place are the bigwigs, and you can generally see it on their faces, too. They know. If they were suddenly to move to the area, they’d be the ones who’d need to go shopping ASAP. So, are you really going to tell the locals they all have to change the way they speak because you’re right and they’re wrong?</p>
<p>P.S. Me.</p>
<p>It is “me.” And I agree with (and love) the person who said “this is not a matter of opinion”!!!</p>
<p>I am not saying that “Me and my friends are going to the football game” is correct, I am just saying that is what many people say. And you will find many, many other instances, such as ‘gotta’. Do you say, “I have got to go”, or “I gotta go” (or g2g) ? Just be honest.
And don’t get me started on ‘it’s’ and ‘its’, or other abuses of the apostrophe. Or ‘literally’, as in “He literally blew up at me.”</p>
<p>g2g-no really!</p>