"Mean You" - Subjective vs. Objective

"Mean you" are going to the grocery store. Say it with me: What? Learn more on today's episode of Grammar Minute!

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Saving the English language 60 seconds at a time.

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and earlier this week, I was on the Hugh Hewitt show to talk about Hillsdale College and journalism—which was totally cool, by the way, and you should hear the segment if you haven’t already. Anyway, while on the show, I was told that I needed to make an episode about the famous “me and,” as in “me and you are going to the store.”

This is wrong for several reasons. Firstly, if you say it fast, it sounds like “mean you.” For politeness’s sake, you should always mention the other person first. With that correction, we have “you and me are going to the store.” This is still wrong, because that “me” should be “I.” That’s because I is doing the action of the verb, meaning that it’s in the subjective case. “Me” is objective and receives the action of the verb. The final, corrected version of this sentence is: You and I are going to the store.

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