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Are those sentences grammatically correct?

"We want Emma (and us) to be part of it."

"This is where Emma (and us) want to stay."

maybe the second one should be "and we"?

Yaron Naveh
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The trick in checking the grammar in this kind of sentence is to remove the reference to "Emma and" (or whomever) and see if it still sounds correct.

When you do that, you'll see that the first one is grammatically correct, since you could potentially write "We want us to be part of it." (Although in this case, only if you were using "us" for emphasis, otherwise you'd be more likely to simply say, "We want to be part of it.")

But the second example doesn't work when you do that - you'd never say "This is where us want to stay." So the correct grammar in that instance would be "This is where Emma and we want to stay."

The same applies to me vs. I. Many people seem to think that, for example, "Fred and I" is always correct. However that is not true if you would say "me" - e.g. "This is a problem for Fred and me" which matches "This is a problem for me."

In grammar terms, it's the difference between whether the pronoun is the subject (we/I) or object (us/me) of the phrase.

Hope that helps!

BoatieGirl
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    Colloquial English doesn't actually work this way. Pronoun case inside coordinating constructs is in flux and has been for many centuries. The current best rule for spoken/informal English is to use the object forms always unless the pronoun is the direct subject of the verb. So "I went home" but "me and my friend went home". However, for formal or standardized writing, this answer is reasonable. I wouldn't expect a news article to say "Emma and us did..." – siride Jan 07 '22 at 21:43
  • @siride Yes, that damn flux. But if you had to chose among "Me and my friend went home," "My friend and I went home," or "My friend and me went home," which would it be? – Zan700 Jan 07 '22 at 23:45
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    @zan700 I would always say "My friend and I went home." I'm a native British English speaker and the other two sound very wrong to me, e.g. "Me and my friend went home" sounds like construct that a child would use - and they often do! – BoatieGirl Jan 08 '22 at 00:53
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    @siride, Is there a reference for:

    use the object forms always unless the pronoun is the direct subject of the verb"?

    I have never heard or seen that before and would love to know more about that in case my knowledge is out of date.

     – BoatieGirl Jan 08 '22 at 01:09
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    @Zan700 I would say "me and my friend went home" unless I were writing more formally, in which case I would follow traditional rules. – siride Jan 08 '22 at 01:30
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    @BoatieGirl Here are some resources: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3469 (https://arnoldzwicky.org/linguistics-notes/pronoun-case-postings/ for the big list of related postings), https://web.stanford.edu/~zwicky/Grano.finalthesis.pdf. Wikipedia mentions it, with footnotes to the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, among others. Contributors to that book also post on the Language Log. Finally, I noted this phenomenon in my own speech and deduced the rules for it. I am a suburban white male American, which certainly influences it. – siride Jan 08 '22 at 01:40
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    @BoatieGirl This may also be a more useful breakdown: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/358552/2804. – siride Jan 08 '22 at 01:43
  • The info in the links is helpful, but not decisive. I'm with BoatieGirl on my choice. If I had an instant of thought before I said it, I would say "My friend and I went home," which doesn't mean I haven't said "Me and my friend went home." – Zan700 Jan 08 '22 at 02:28
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    @Zan700 Where are you from and how old are you? I would suspect that different regions and age groups may have different tendencies. – siride Jan 08 '22 at 03:42