Do you use "me" as the subject?

Question

When I was reading an English web site on the Internet (BBC's 6 Minutes English), I came across this sentence:

At the weekends, me and my sisters didn't go to cybercafes or the cinema or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers.

I've never seen "me" used as the subject and placed at the beginning of a sentence, so I was surprised to see this. I think of course "I and my sisters didn't go" is better, but is "me and my sisters didn't go" accepted as a colloquial expression by English-speaking people?

My mom always joked when correcting me, "mean my sisters; how mean are they?" because of the way the words "me" and "and" slurred together to sound like "mean". — vpn, Oct 02 '16 at 13:51
In the colloquial rendering, the pronunciation of 'my' changes. — Edwin Ashworth, Oct 02 '16 at 14:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 02 '16 at 14:55

This is incorrect grammar, although widely used, usually by working class people. It is the reason that that the opposite error is made by middle class and even upper class people. This opposite error is "My mother always cooked tea for my sisters and I on schooldays".

It's really easy to get it right. All you have to do is imagine the same sentence referring only to yourself and the right form of the personal pronoun is obvious (unless your native dialect is West Indian in the first case or English West Country in the second). No one else would say "Me didn't go to cybercafes" or "My mother always cooked tea for I" would they?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 02 '16 at 13:24

Yes, it may be acceptable colloquially and informally but not formally. The proper phrase should be "... my sisters and I...".

When used as a subject, "I" is generally appropriate, and when used as an object, "me" is appropriate.

In a listing of multiple subjects, "I" should appear last.

Do you use "me" as the subject?

2 Answers2