So what is this daily nugget about? It is a little fact about the English Language that we use in our everyday life. They can be...well,pretty interesting.
Hopefully these nuggets of knowledge will help you(& me!) to be more conscious of the language.
Nugget #1
A conversation between two friends:
A: "What are your plans for the weekend?"
B: "Me and my friends are going to the beach! What about you?"
A: "My mother is taking my siblings and I out to lunch."
Do you find anything wrong with the sentences above?
If you noticed the mistakes (yes, there are 2), then good for you!
A common mistake, even to the best of English speakers, is to confuse the pronouns 'me' and 'I'.
The sentences should actually read:
"My friends and I are going to the beach." and "My mother is taking my siblings and me out to lunch."
That's because, in the first sentence, the speaker is the subject (the one doing the action), while in the second sentence, the speaker is the object (the one whom the action is being done to). So, we use 'I' for the subject, and 'me' for the object.
Here's a simple test to help you figure out which one is accurate:
Break down the sentence and remove the additional noun and see if it reads properly!
E.g. Me and my friends are going to the beach. ---> Me is going to the beach + My friends are going to the beach.
Clearly, we do not say 'Me is going to the beach' so we replace 'me' with 'I' instead. :)
This error frequently occurs in speech, so do take heed the next time you use the first person pronouns 'I' and 'me'!
No comments:
Post a Comment