Is "me trying to do [something]" grammatical?

Question

Why are there some people saying

Me trying to...

Should it be

"I try to..."

Is this grammatically correct?
How should I then finish this?

This is kinda like colloquial thing. Like the assignment is too long, me trying to finish that. — Q.MEO, Sep 23 '16 at 04:49
Never heard it in that context, but I'm really old. I could see it as a caption to a picture "Me trying to water ski". — deadrat, Sep 23 '16 at 04:51
It could also be used in a simile, such as "Me trying to water ski would be about as graceful as a hippo bungee jumping." — Hellion, Sep 23 '16 at 15:55

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 23 '16 at 07:14

0

The ACC-ing construction

(She didn't like me singing five nights a week)

is equally as grammatical as the POSS-ing

(She didn't like my singing the National Anthem in Klingon).

An ACC-ing construction can certainly be fronted as subject:

John trying to dance is a sight best avoided.

but tends to sound stuffy, and faintly ridiculous with a pronoun instead of a noun:

Me / him ... trying to dance is a sight best avoided.

....

As @deadrat says, the objective is the default case in a sentence fragment:

[This is a picture of] Me attempting to dance.

answered Sep 23 '16 at 07:14

Edwin Ashworth

Thank you. Your answer is really detailed. Whereas, I don't quite understand the structure of the sentence"John trying to dance is a sight best avoided." Why isn't there a "is" after John and avoid is the tense "avoided." – Q.MEO Sep 23 '16 at 11:35
It's related to 'Have you ever seen John trying to dance', with 'John trying to dance' used as subject rather than object. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 25 '16 at 13:32

1 Answers1