After seeing “You can contact Jack or I” in an email message the other week, I wrote a few paragraphs about the nominative and objective cases of English pronouns and where to use them.  But all or most of you already understand the difference between “I” and “me” intuitively.  It’s when a noun and a pronoun, or two pronouns, are joined using “and” or “or” that people get shaky.

So I’ll jettison the classroom talk and offer a simple rule:
Ignore the noun or the other pronoun for a moment.
If “I” is correct standing alone, then “I” is correct in combination.
If “me” is correct standing alone, then “me” is correct in combination.

I will be visiting the London office.
Either you or I will be visiting the London office.
Todd, Kevin and I will be visiting the London office.

Call me tonight.
Call Bill or me tonight.
Call my wife and me tonight.
Call Yann but not me tonight.

A memo came for me.
A memo came for her.
A memo came for her and me.

Joe is between me and the wall.
The desk is between Joe and me.
We’ll keep this information between you and me.

You can use the same principle when the pronoun in question is “he” vs. “him,” or “she” vs. “her.”

He went home early.
Ken and he went home early.
He and Ken went home early.

I sent her my best regards.
I sent Charlie and her my best regards.

If she reads the memo, she’ll know what’s going on.
If Jim and she read the memo, they’ll know what’s going on.

I hope this will make things easier for you and me.
<—–2-23-2009—–MSG—–>

A couple of people who work here have asked me to discuss some words that keep giving them trouble.  I’m here to help, as always.

“Affect” and “effect” are just plain ill-behaved.  I don’t blame anyone for having problems with them.
The result of any action is its EFFECT.  But what that action does is AFFECT someone or something.
To make things more confusing, EFFECT is also used as a verb meaning to cause or produce (usually something intangible).
(Both words have other, more obscure meanings, which I won’t go into here.  The dictionary is your friend.)

So:
The effect of the new law is to ban smoking in restaurants.
That will affect my health in a big way.
Over time, we hope it will effect a change in people’s attitudes.

PAST is the opposite of FUTURE, in both time and grammar.
PASSED is the past tense of PASS.
Things whose time has PASSED are now consigned to the PAST; PAST is the adjective usually used, even when both apply logically.

In the past I worked for a bank, but many years have passed since then.
We passed the evening talking about past glories.

Here are a couple of online resources I recommend.  I can’t do without them. (Your verbiage may vary.)

If you need a dictionary and don’t have one handy, this URL may be helpful:

http://www.onelook.com

It accesses a database of over 900 dictionaries, with provision for wildcards in spelling and lookups by meaning.
(But note that this includes British dictionaries and lists of acronyms, slang and jargon.
The dictionaries we rely on as authorities here are the Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage.)

And if you know what a thesaurus is for and how to use it, you can find one at

http://www.thesaurus.com

which is the online version of Roget’s.

<—–2-18-2009—–MSG—–>