I and me

Which you use depends on whether the word is the subject or the object. The subject is the person or thing that takes action (‘I greeted him.’) while the object is the person or thing that is acted upon (‘He greeted me.’). People only really get this wrong in three cases:

When there are two subjects

 “Me and John went to Manchester.” (wrong)

In this case, you just have to remove the other name to see that this is wrong: you would never say ‘Me went to Manchester’. Both you and John are the subjects of the sentence, so it should go:

 “John and I went to Manchester.”

When there are two objects

 “Sarah had lunch with John and I.” (wrong)

Again, you just have to remove the other name to see that the sentence is wrong. It should go:

 “Sarah had lunch with John and me.”

After a preposition

 “This is between you and I.” or “Between you and I, …” (wrong)

A preposition is a small word (such as ‘about’, ‘of’, ‘by’, ‘at’, ‘in’, ‘to’, ‘with’, ‘under’, ‘above’, ‘on’, ‘into’, ‘before’, ‘since’, ‘between’ and ‘up’) which indicates how some other word affects a noun. Some examples of how they affect the meaning of a noun are:

• They talked to me.
• They talked about me.
• They talked without me.

Any noun that has been affected by a preposition becomes the object of its own clause, even if it’s right at the beginning of a sentence. That’s why you say ‘To me it seems obvious’ instead of ‘To I it seems obvious’. It is also why the sentence above should go:

 “This is between you and me.” or “Between you and me, …”