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Possible Duplicate:
When do I use “I” instead of “me?”

Apparently I use 'Me and xxx' in conversation often enough that a foreign English speaker I work with has started using it as well. When he said it I automatically corrected him. ;)

Clearly I've picked this up from somewhere. Does anyone know if it's a regional variation? I do recall a teacher having a go at someone over saying it when I was at school, but he Wasn't From Round Here...

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ijw
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    It's a common "error", but I've never heard anyone suggest that it's particularly associated with any specific regional dialect. It probably crops up everywhere people speak English. – FumbleFingers Oct 20 '11 at 15:20
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    Hence the famous song: "My shadow and I" – mgb Oct 20 '11 at 15:21
  • Voted to close, 'tis a duplicate. –  Oct 20 '11 at 15:40
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    This isn't a duplicate question. It asks not "What's the rule?" but "Is there regional variation of those following the rule?" – Hugo Oct 20 '11 at 15:53
  • @FumbleFingers: this example has been hugely tied up for a long time with questions of formal vs. colloquial, prestige vs. non-prestige use, hyper-correction, etc; it definitely has demographic variation, and I’d be amazed if there isn’t sometimes a strong regional component to that. – PLL Oct 20 '11 at 16:25
  • @PLL: I've no idea how one could collect all the relevant data, but it seems likely to me the prevalence of this usage will correlate to a greater or lesser extent with lots of factors. Region, social class, age, education, etc., not to mention spoken/written, and formal/informal contexts for the same speaker. I just don't think it would be particularly enlightening, or that we should read much into any regional variation, even supposing we could reliably establish that it exists. – FumbleFingers Oct 20 '11 at 19:10
  • I'd like to point out that this is not remotely an exact duplicate of the proposed question, which is concerned with copulas and prepositions. And nor is it a duplicate of the more relevant "he and I" style questions. I'm quite aware of the rules surrounding the usage, which the previous questions I found discuss; quite clear on what is taught to be correct and the theories behind that. I'm asking whether the use is regional or not, which the previous questions didn't ask, so while it may overlap there is no way it's an exact duplicate. – ijw Oct 22 '11 at 14:22

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Standard English does not allow me and X in subject position but it is found in other varieties of the language.

Barrie England
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    Emonds argues that it is found in all naturally learned varieties of English. – Colin Fine Oct 20 '11 at 16:29
  • postition or position? – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Oct 20 '11 at 16:39
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    @ColinFine but is Standard English a naturally learned variety of English? – morphail Oct 20 '11 at 18:12
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    Can't find the exact reference in that rather long paper, but, on the other hand, ‘[Kim and me saw the accident] will be heard in the speech of speakers of dialects that have a different rule for case inflection of pronouns: they use the accusative forms (me, him, her, us, them) whenever the pronoun is coordinated. Standard English does not.’ (Huddleston and Pullum, ‘Cambridge Grammar of the English Language’) – Barrie England Oct 20 '11 at 19:19
  • I realise that in Huddleston and Pullum's example the coordinated element (Kim) precedes rather than follows 'me', but the grammatical point is the same. – Barrie England Oct 20 '11 at 19:29
  • @morphail: No, Emonds' case is that what he calls "prestige dialect" is not, and cannot be, a naturally learned variety of English. – Colin Fine Oct 21 '11 at 10:42
  • Anyone care to explain the -1? – Barrie England Oct 22 '11 at 14:39
  • @ Colin: ‘Roughly speaking, Standard is the kind of English which is: 1. written in published work, 2. spoken in situations where published writing is most influential, especially in education (and especially at University level), 3. SPOKEN “NATIVELY” (AT HOME) BY PEOPLE WHO ARE MOST INFLUENCED BY PUBLISHED WRITING - THE “PROFESSIONAL CLASS” ’ (My emphasis).

    (Richard Hudson, 2000. Full text here: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/SEhudson.htm)

     – Barrie England Oct 22 '11 at 14:48