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This sentence sounds uncomfortable but I believe it to be correct. For background I posted a simple picture with the caption "This is my wife and me" and the grammar nazi's pounced. I am having trouble figuring out if it should me "this is my wife and I" as they have proclaimed. Would we be the object or subject of this sentence to help identify if I should use "I" or "me"

dan waters
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  • nazi's? And please read who the Nazis were and avoid trivializing this term by using it to mean pedants. It is deeply offensive to those who were affected by the actual Nazis. – David Apr 29 '19 at 16:47
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    If you were talking about you without your wife whch would you say in the context? I suspect that you would say "This is me". If you would say 'me' when you are talking about yourself why would change the pronoun just because you've added a second person? The only case where the grammar is usually 'incorrect' is the conversation "Who's there?" technically the answer should be "It is I" but nearly everyone says "It's me". With two people that would be "It's Jane and me" but 'should' be "It is Jane and I". I don't believe anyone would say the second one. – BoldBen Apr 29 '19 at 18:24

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It's "and me" in this case

You're right, they're wrong. In this case.

  • "This is my wife and me" - Correct

To see why, just expand the clause using "wife and me" into two clauses: one for "my wife" and one for "me":

  • correct This is my wife and this is me.
  • incorrect This is my wife and this is I.

Who says "this is I"? People who think that using incorrect grammar makes them sound educated, that's who.

here's when to use "and I"

However, here's an example of "my wife and I" that is correct:

  • "He bought two tickets so that my wife and I could attend" - Correct

Why? Again, just expand the "wife and I could attend" into two repeated statements, one for "my wife" and another for "I":

  • incorrect ...so that my wife could attend and so that me could attend
  • correct ...so that my wife could attend and so that I could attend

Copulas aren't an exception either

A sentence of the form "[X] is [Y]" is known as a "copula" - a fancy word to state that [X] and [Y] are literally the same thing. Now, there is a rule, from Latin (of course) that in a copula, both [X] and [Y] must be in the Nominative case ("I,he,she,they").

However, you'll note the words "in Latin" there. We don't speak Latin. And while may English words do come from Latin, via French, the grammar of English is solidly Germanic. In English, it's only sometimes right to use the same case for both sides of "is", and two hundred years of "educated" speakers hasn't made "she is I" sound like anything other than pretentious gibberish.

KrisW
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