Jamie

I used to know a Hispanic guy named Jamie. I called him Jamee for a while, then learned that the correct pronunciation was HyMe. That has nothing to do with our thought for today, but I was reminded of it when I titled the essay. Ime or more accurately I-Me. (And I get paid by the word, so am pumping up the paycheck.)

Our communications channels are overwhelmed with, what I consider to be an egregious grammatical error. I will illustrate. Can you find at least three errors in this sentence? "Me and him is going fishing." (Trick question. There are four.) Now for the coup de gras (That's French for the final blow–or something. CDG). "Give the fishing tackle to he and I." Let me expand. "Give the fishing tackle to David and I."

TV, radio, print media, and regular conversations are replete with the I-Me error. Even people who should know better, and those who have already been instructed by me, persist in making this mistake. (Mrs. Cheney must be spinning in her grave.)

Grammar lesson. "I" and "he" are subjective pronouns. That means that they are used as the subject of a sentence or phrase. In our CDG the prepositional phrase is, "to he and I." Notice that the pronouns are the subjects of the preposition, so should be "him and me."

I am not sure why this error has become so widespread. I have a wild guess, but who wants that? Well, you might if you have read this far. I surmise that the "royal we" syndrome has struck the I-world. (Not to be confused with the i-world, like i-Pad, i-Phone, etc.). Some say that the Queen of England uses the "royal we," as in, "We will be present." She means "I will be present."

Just saying give it to "David and me," sounds a little pedestrian and plebeian. So they dress it up  by using the classier "I" instead of me. Like I said, wild guess. Maybe it is just hearing an error enough makes it sound right. But somebody had to start it. Hint: Say the phrase without the other name or pronoun. "Give it to I." That sounds awkward and dumb, to me anyway.

The thing that I think is funny, is that in attempting to appear cultured and erudite, they are in actuality reverting to "hillbilly" jargon. "Me and him is goin' fishin'." Sorry Mrs. Cheney.

And here are a couple of Googles who agree with...I.
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/when-to-use-i-and-when-to-use-me
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/i-vs-me/

Now bring on those split infinitives. "Give the fishing tackle to absurdly overloaded David."