The Chipmunk of Doom has been watching TV and he’s not happy.
In fact, he’s downright miffed. You see, after surfing the channels from reality shows to news programs to sitcoms, he discovered that there are generations of people of every kind who have kicked the pronoun ME to the curb—and they’re spreading the trend around the world through the TV!
He’s too upset to speak, so he asked me to tell you this sad grammar tale:
Once upon a time there lived a personal pronoun named ME. This pronoun lived a full and vibrant life, and worked hard to build a solid career as an object pronoun in various sentences. As a professional object pronoun, ME found work in such sentences as Please call me if you would like to share this cup of acorn tea and The bakery sent these acorn cupcakes to you and me. It was an exciting life full of adventure and risk.
But then…it all started to go horribly wrong. Somewhere along the way, people stopped using ME and started using I instead. No matter how much ME jumped up and down and tried to explain that I was a subject and not an object, no one would listen. ME started seeing sentences like Martha sent this jug of acorns to you and I.
You see, the people were afraid. They remembered something from their school days about when to say You and I and when to say You and me…but the rules had gotten all muddled up.
ME could barely make ends meet. He found work now and then with teachers and editors, but his speaking engagements had virtually dried up. To make matters worse, his nemesis MYSELF gradually elbowed his way in, making it even more difficult for ME to find steady employment. Suddenly people were saying Martha sent this jug of acorns to you and myself. And MYSELF knew he made people sound awful, but he didn’t care! MYSELF is definitely the most unethical pronoun there is.
So what happened to poor ME? Well, it’s simple—people forgot the basics. They got it into their heads that there was something wrong with ME, and started over-correcting themselves or just avoiding the pronoun altogether.
Now the Chipmunk of Doom wants us to help get ME back on his feet once and for all. Not only will we help a struggling pronoun put food on the table, but we’ll all sound a lot sharper.
Here are the Chipmunk of Doom’s simple rules for me, myself, and I. If you follow these rules, baskets of acorns will rain down upon you—or at least you’ll never have to unlearn bad grammar habits!
The Basics in a Nutshell
- The subject in a sentence is the one doing something: I am making acorn tea.
- The object in a sentence is the one having something done to it. He spilled his acorn tea on me.
(In this case, acorn tea is a direct object, and me is the object of the preposition on. But we’re going to keep it simple! For now, it is important to know that me is in an object position and is not the subject of the sentence.) - A reflexive sentence is one that has the same subject and object: I see myself reflected in my cup of acorn tea.
- I is a pronoun that can only be used in a subject position.
- Me is a pronoun that can only be used in an object position.
- Myself is a reflexive pronoun that can only be used as an object and only in a reflexive sentence. It is never a subject.
Looky Here
Here are some examples to help you learn or teach the basics of this concept correctly the first time—and make the Chipmunk of Doom a little less gloomy:
- Wrong: They pelted the chipmunk and I with acorns.
(I can never be an object; it’s always a subject.) - Incredibly wrong: They pelted the chipmunk and myself with acorns.
(Myself can only be an object in a reflexive sentence: I pelted myself with acorns.) - Right: They pelted the chipmunk and me with acorns.
(Me is always correct when used as an object.)
*****
- Right: No one likes pelting the chipmunk with acorns more than I.
(Back in the day, this is how people talked. It’s still correct, but many people consider it stilted and formal. The Chipmunk of Doom, who loves Victorian novels, still uses this form.) - Right: No one likes pelting the chipmunk with acorns more than me. (Technically incorrect, this usage is now fully accepted and sounds a lot friendlier. Feel free to use it!)
- Right: I like pelting the chipmunk with acorns, myself.
(Myself can also be used for emphasis after I has already been used as the subject.)
The Simple Trick
When in doubt, take out the other person in the sentence and see how it sounds:
- They pelted I with acorns.
(You wouldn’t say that, now, would you?) - They pelted myself with acorns.
(Many people say this, but the Chipmunk of Doom will tell you that they’re all wrong.) - They pelted me with acorns.
(Ah. Success!)
If we all teach these rules to just one person, and that person teaches another…why, pretty soon we’ll all be shouting from the treetops that there really is nothing wrong with ME!
*****
The Chipmunk Challenge
While watching TV today, count how many times you hear one of these pronouns used incorrectly. You’ll be amazed! Give yourself one acorn for every mistake identified. Then make yourself a nice acorn pie.
About Renée LaTulippe
This chipmunk is hysterical! And VERY informative – I love reading his misadventures.
ME gets too much usage in my house! My kids are more likely to say, “Me and my friend are going out to play,” than, “My friend and I are going out to play.” It drives me nuts because they know how to say it properly when they separate it like you suggested. Hopefully they’ll eventually get tired of hearing me correct them and say it right the first time.
Great article. This is such a hard concept for little ones (and adults) to learn. Correct word usage is so important in communication. I try to stress this with my children on a daily basis.
Thank you for that! I am actually not so great with the rules, so I learn as I teach my children…which is another reason why I love homeschooling! Thank you for the nonboring way of learning:)
Sabrina Finkbone
Great post! Thanks for explaining it so well.
This is going on Facebook for the adults in my life!
What a great article! Loved it!
I love the technique suggested about taking the other persons name out of the sentence. My son remember rules best when I give him a tip like this to remember. Thank You for sharing.
Thank you for reminding me about these simple rules. I am hoping to be able to keep my children in line with their speaking. It’s so much fun to read letters and journals of earlier years when men spoke so eloquently. I am reminded of how simple our sentences are nowadays and how little patience I have with myself (or would it be “me”… I need to go back and look again.)
Gratefully,
Amy
This was a great article. You gave easy to understand examples and I love the trick. Thank you!
Thanks for these helpful tips. I have always told my children that they can take out the other part and see how it sounds and that will clue you in to either using the “I” or “me.” But I had forgotten the “object” part and wasn’t aware of how to use “myself” correctly. So I appreciate you clearly the matter up.
By the way, the chipmunk is so cute. My daughter loves animals and so anytime she can use them in stories, drawings, etc. then she is quiet happy.
Thanks!
Nancy M.
This was a great way to explain the difference between I, Myself, and Me. Thank you.
Andrea
Thanks for all your hard work and that you make teaching spelling easy!
Angie C.
I love this! I have always had trouble with spelling and Grammar. I have not been looking forward to teaching these to my children. I started using all about spelling last year and I have learned so much along with my daughter. This Blog is great. I wish all about learning would come out with Grammar and Writing programs too!
Toni
I confess that I’ve been guilty of this for most of my life! My husband has patiently and gently corrected me and I think I’m almost retrained. I love the squirrel!
Thank you so much! Now I am clear as to what to use when!
Dessa
Oklahoma
Oh this is a great article. I know I have been confused by I and me before *oops!* Thanks for explaining!
I confess that I have committed this grammar faux pas many times in the past, but my husband has gently and patiently corrected me since we married seven years ago and I’m finally getting it! Thanks for the squirrel’s perspective.
I love this! I had a wonderful English teacher in middle and high school, and she never hesitated to correct the misuse of I, me and myself even outside of class.
Thank you for laying out such clear rules.
Thank you for the clear teaching here – now could you explain the apostrophe ? It is wrongly used just about everywhere I look !
Thanks, sandra
It seems I have a lot to learn, lol. I don’t remember learning this when I was in school, so I guess we’ll be learning it together. Thanks for all the great tips.
This was very helpful. Thank you for the examples.
Great article, very informative. I have made a few of these mistakes.
What a fun way to present grammatical teachings! My little girl was all giggles thinking about the poor underemployed chipmunk.
I haven’t really looked on the community site for AAS, and now I see I must!
Great post!
I learned the “simple rule” you wrote in elementary school and still use it today. Glad to have you back up the rule to my kids.
Thanks for your wonderful program,
Jill
I love this! What a good reminder of how the I’s, the me’s, and myself work together! Thank you!
Good article. Glad to see the rules all laid out here.
I love the chipmunk! The rules were laid out very clearly and now I will be able to talk about myself to me. :) (Gosh, I hope I got that right.)
This has been driving me nuts for a while. It’s gotten to the point where even my kids yell out the corrections when we watch tv. It’s so obvious the tv writers are overcorrecting and jumbling up the rules they learned in grade school. Great post.
Thanks for clearing up the subject of me, I, and myself. I’ve always found this incredibly confusing. Now I know! I think I’ll print this for when I inevitably forget.
Hahaha! Thanks for the reminders, Renee! I love chipmunks and hand feed them in my yard – … it’ll never be the same again! From now on I will try to keep them all employed!
I really like this article it’s a great review for me sometimes I feel like I didn’t learn grammer in school at all.
I will use this with my children . What a fun way to teach them the proper way to use I and me! Thanks! We love AAS! My six year old, who struggled with reading and spelling
is loving it now! We can’t wait for All About Reading to come out.
I loved this article. I’ts such a great review sometimes I feel like I never trully learned grammer in school.
Loved it! A wonderful way to remember the rules for me!
I am a bit paranoid about typing on this forum. I was the child who sat in back with a chip on her shoulder murmuring “Why do we have to learn this boring old stuff?”
Thank you Mr. Squirrel. I have printed your rules, will commit them to memory and then will dutifully pass them along to my children.
It has gotten so I don’t even want to watch tv anymore. Or read a newspaper. Sad.
I thought this article was cute. It seems that grammar altogether has lost its priority in our culture today :( I love that I have the opportunity to educate my children, so they can know and understand such things.
Great post! The missing “me” has bothered me for a long time. I didn’t know the actual rule for “myself”, so it was informative, as well.
Me love this post. Just kidding. I notice the I/me error all the time. Thank you for explaining it so clearly.
I loved this post. It was just a few years ago in teaching my own children, that I came upon concisely stated rules for differentiating between the use of ‘I’ and ‘me’. My children still use the rules, on occasion, to be sure they have it right.
What a creative way to increase awareness of this common error. I knew “me” and “I” were misused frequently, but was unsure of the rules. Thanks!
What a creative article! I was aware that “me” and “I” were often misused, but wasn’t sure of the exact rules… Thanks!
Methinks the chipmunk needs to continue his protest! Great job!
Me is definitely the overused pronoun in our house, but I am hopeful the review of these rules will be helpful!
Perhaps I’m biased since I live near St. Louis, but Mr. Chipmunk looks suspiciously like Rally Squirrel that led the Cards to the World Series. His principles, no matter the species, are sound though.
Perfect! I love the Chipmunk of Doom, and I’m sure my daughter will as well!
Below is a response I receive from my friend who majored in English referring to your article:
This is cute, but unfortunately, it is wrong. It is not true that “I” can only be a subject; it is true that “I” is used in the nominative case, and “me” is used in the objective case. In the examples cited, the author claims that it is incorrect to say “The only ones they pelted with acorns were the chipmunk and I.” In fact, in this sentence, “I” is used as a predicate nominative, which is a noun (or pronoun) that follows a linking verb and renames the subject; this is correct. The author claims that it would be correct to use “me” in this sentence because it is an object; however, it is neither an object of a preposition nor a direct object in this sentence. Direct objects follow action verbs, not linking verbs; objects of prepositions follow prepositions.
Again, the sentence “The only one they pelted with acorns was I.” is in fact correct. The author’s “simple trick” of taking out the other person sometimes helps to clarify a sentence, but not in this case. What he should take out is the clause “(whom) they pelted with acorns.” Then you are left with “The only ones were the chipmunk and I,” and you can more easily see that the sentence consists of a subject, a linking verb, and a predicate nominative. It is like the sentence “His mother is I.” It might sound wrong, precisely because, as the author says, we are inundated with inaccurate grammar, but it is correct. You can check it by turning it around: “I am his mother.” In the same way you can turn around his sentence: The chipmunk and I were the only ones (they pelted with acorns).
It is also wrong to say that the object of the sentence is the one having something done to it. There is no such thing as the object of a sentence. There is an object of a preposition (which is in fact what is used in that sentence) which is a noun or pronoun that completes a prepositional phrase. There is also a direct object, which follows an action verb and receives the action from that verb.
I hope this makes sense.
(And, just to add insult to injury, this picture is of a squirrel, not a chipmunk! :) )
I, too, noticed the simplification of the rule to not address the use of “I” as a subject complement. This is probably the trickiest part to explain, but if the verb is a linking verb, then subject pronouns are used instead of object pronouns. One way to determine if the sentence has a linking verb and therefore uses a subject pronoun for the subject complement is to change the sentence to an equation, and see if it makes sense.
In the above poster’s example, s/he states the following sentence (and erroneously attributes it to the blog author):
The only ones they pelted with acorns were the chipmunk and I.
Equation: The only ones they pelted with acorns = the chipmunk and I
Makes sense, it is a linking verb; use a subject pronoun because it is a subject complement.
By contrast, the author’s example of an incorrect use of the subject pronoun follows:
They pelted the chipmunk and I with acorns.
Equation: They = the chipmunk and I
Does not make sense, it is an action verb; use an object pronoun because it is a direct object.
They pelted the chipmunk and me with acorns.
Great article! In this example another way to know if it sounds correct is to add “did” to the end. It helps the ear know if it is being used correctly.
From Mr. Chipmunk:
It was only a few months ago we learned the trick to putting the right word (me or I) into the sentence correctly. (By taking out the other person and seeing if it makes sense. I love the little tips that make everything easier.
My high school English teacher would always remind us to try the sentence first by using only the pronoun and not the name of the other person mentioned and I always think about that when I am using ‘me or I’.
Grammar is something that I struggle to teach. This post was very informative. Maybe you guys need to come up with a program for grammar. All About Grammar :)
Hi Unregistered,
Welcome to our friendly community! My post was meant to share just the most basic rules, those that we would start with for grammar school children. Talking about subjects and objects is a good way to help kids access what’s going on in a sentence, and later on they can learn the more in-depth terms. Rules of English grammar can be quite complex, and we don’t want to scare the kiddies right off the bat! :)
Great article. My son loves the chipmunk!
Love this post. Thanks for the reminder!
Great article, my grammar is horrible.
I love that i’m learning so much!! Thankfully my children are still young yet and I hope I haven’t damaged them with my poor grammar thus far.
Another great post, Renee! Love the chipmunk!
Very clever. It’s always a struggle to decide between proper usage and comfort when it comes to the me, myself and I issue. The Chipmunk of Doom has helped remind me of the rules. Thanks
Thanks for the laughs and the quick tips. I appreciate them.
Im going to have to let my kids read this or well me read it aloud!! Love it… Thanks!
I love this post! My mother always stressed the importance of speaking correctly as I was growing up… now that I’m a homeschooling mother of 2 boys (10 &8 years) I find that I am working to impress these same principles upon them! Thanks for breaking down the rules for us. :)
I have a hard time trying to get my kids to stop using ME for everything “me want me water”.
Great article. The misuse of I and me always bugs the crud out of me. I love your fun and simple explanations.
I love this! I used to teach middle school English, and correct grammar was a never-ending battle. I’m trying to start early with my kids so we don’t have to “unlearn” down the road.
I really enjoyed this article! Thanks for clarifying the uses of each word for me. Usually I just go with what sounds right, but these days I hear so many wrong usages I’m not sure what’s right any more!
Liked how you wrote this… “over-correcting themselves” is something I find myself doing as it has gotten mixed up in my head.
Thank you for the great post. I love the fun way you presented the correct usage of each word. I will need to read this to my boys!
Thank you! I love the clear and concise way you explained it. I have used and explained it to my children how to use The Simple Trick. Thanks for sharing.
Wow, I learned a lot about myself! Thank you, Chipmunk of Doom! -Tennille
That was adorable and very informative! The English language can be quite confusing and I appreciate all clarification.
It’s good to know that “…than me” is now generally accepted, though it bothers me that it’s technically incorrect! I find grammar mistakes everywhere – even on professional signage! Much of this isn’t being taught in schools anymore, which is frightening.
I’m glad to see someone explain this clearly, and in an entertaining way! The misuses of I, me, and myself are one of my pet peeves.
LOVE this Blog. My 9 year old daughter read it also and now she knows why I am forever correcting her and her brother when they say “Me” in a sentence improperly.
I love this explanation. I’ve tried to explain the difference to many people, now I have a more entertaining way to get this across. I even mix them up sometimes and now my children get a kick out of correcting me.
This is awesome!! Thank you for sharing the information!! I will definitely be using this for my kids!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAmen!!!! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for posting this article. Next, elementary school children need to learn that object pronouns are not used as subjects. I hear many statements like- “Me have to go home.” “Her want another cookie.” “Him is in the way.” Even my youngsters are picking this trend up from their friends.
I have to confess it is cute when the kids are little and they make this mistake. It isn’t so cute when they get older and you are embarrassed by it!
Hi aunt renee! ME and dad love the blog LOL. Especially the chipmunk of doom!
Thanks for the cute lesson. I have always used your trick of removing the other person when in doubt.
Love the post!! I have also been using these words incorrectly for several years. I am glad to get a refresher course :-)
I correct my children frequently…..hopefully someday this will stick..me….I….me…I..
Right up there with doing well..and doing good..and may I and can I…
This is such a great article! We just had a conversation about this with the kids last week!
Good grammar habits are difficult in the deep South. Thanks for the refresher course.
That is one thing that really bugs me — adults using ‘I’ when it should be ‘me’ ! ! I work with young children, and I believe anyone who has contact with a young child should be especially careful to use proper grammar. When I hear a child care provider or preschool teacher use ‘I’ when it should be ‘me’ — I cringe! Children learn what they hear. They need to hear proper grammar. Thanks for putting this post up for all to see, Chipmunk.
I learned the I/Me rule from . . . someone . . . I think in college, actually. Although I think I’m only conscious of it when I’m writing not so much when I’m speaking :o/ I’ll have to pay closer attention.
Thank you for this! It drives me nuts! haha. This does make it easier and very humorous!
It isn’t just on television anymore. It is everywhere that grammar and misspelling have gone rampant. It’s rather sad.
Love the chipmunk!! What a cute way to clear up some grammar confusion! I’ve lost track of the rules over the years so I really appreciate the refresher! I love learning along with my kiddos!! :-)
This is a great way to help remember the proper use of I. Thank you. Keep the stories coming.
This is a wonderful article! I think I actually used “myself” incorrectly yesterday. Great. Me and I are pet peeves of mine!
Thank you for helping me, myself and I figure it out.
I love, love, love this! Thank you so much! We will be making this into a chart. My son will love the chipmunk. In fact, I think I will find a coloring page of a chipmunk and let him color it then put it with the chart. He’s very visual and this will help him remember. Thanks again!!!!
This is the clearest explanation of this rule that i have ever read. I wasn’t sure of the exact rule, and i am a writer. Thanks!
I must admit in an attempt to not use ” me ” incorrectly, I’ve really increased my use of ” I ” also. I didn’t fully understand the use of one over the other, so I would stand corrected whenever someone who thought they knew better did so. Now I know they were not always correct. Thanks Renee and Chipmunk! The trick is great for making teaching the rule easy too!
Great article! Thanks!
What a great explanation and example of how our grammar is going downhill!
This is so adorable!!! I love the teaching style!
I love this! A great explaination to something that constantly bothers me!
thanks for writing this – surely it will cut down on wrong usage if only the people who need it read it!
I love the Chipmonk of Doom. A very good forum for teaching the correct way. I vs. me has been one of my pet peeves for years! Great article!
thank you, thank you!
Learning through stories is so much fun for my pessimistic learner.
What a fun article. Sometime in grade school I was taught the simple rule that you have at the end. It has stuck with me ever since, and it’s easy for me to figure out the correct pronoun if in doubt. I will be teaching it to my kids.
Thanks for the clear explanation and the tips! :)
Just read this with my son (2nd grade). We loved it! I feel like I have been given the freedom to be my casual self again! ;)
Love this chipmunk, he is really funny:) this is such a great article! I got to send this one out!
thanks for sharing!
Great article!! Love it!