Grammar rant
Every once in a while people really start to bother me. It seems people forget a basic lesson which we all learned in middle school language arts class: subject pronouns are used in the subject of the sentence and object pronouns are used in the predicate.
Example: The ball hit me.
We all understand in this example that "the ball" is the subject and "me" is the predicate or object. I've noticed that there seems to be quite a bit of confusion if either the subjet or object is compounded. The rule doesn't change. A subject pronoun still goes in the subject and an object pronoun still goes in the predicate.
Example: I go to the store. Fred goes to the store. Fred and I go to the store.
This is an easy one, I think. We all know "I" is used in the subject. But what if the predicate is compounded? This is where the confusion seems to be.
Example: The cat sleeps with Miriam. The cat sleeps with me.
Put this way, I think it's pretty easy to see that the object pronoun should be used in a compound predicate.
Common use example: The cat sleeps with Miriam and I.
This is clearly incorrect given the previous example. When the objects are taken separately, it's very easy to see the correct use of the object pronoun. The use of the object pronoun doesn't change just because the predicate is compounded.
Corrected example: The cat sleeps with Miriam and me.
I really wish people would understand this lesson. I cringe every time I hear this mistake made.
One other quick pronoun misuse:
"May I speak to [blank]?"
"This is she."
"This[subject] is[verb] she her[predicate]."
Hope this clears up any confusion. Thanks for your attention ;)