(Untitled)

[lobosolo]

In a recent journal entry, I wanted to write "Mary and I both turn 65 next year, me in January, she in December."

But there's some grammatical dissonance there, isn't there? "Me" and "she" can't both be right. But "I in January" sounds hopelessly stilted, and "her in December" just sounds ignorant. What's the answer?

Comments

[lemur_man]

Mary and I both turn 65 next year, in December and January, respectively.

[lobosolo]

That's a neat way of ducking the problem. :)

[lemur_man]

I'm all in favour of recasting a sentence to obviate the issue.

[full4zaccordion]

I believe it's I and she, because Mary and the speaker are still the subjects of the sentence.

[full4zaccordion]

But that ignores the actual grammar of the English language.

[fflo]

"I" ain't stilted---it's just right. Similar choice as whether to use "This is she/he" when answering the telephone, v. the friendly, common touch of "That's me."

[chrestomanci]

I just circumvent the entire issue and say "Speaking." I guess I'm a coward that way. :)

[fflo]

And there's always Fred Flintstone's solution: "It's your dime; start talkin'."

[lemur_man]

That sounds a lot more natural to me than 'This is he/she'. I've also encountered:

{May I speak to/Is that} [name]?
- This is!

[ulvesang]

Reminds me of when a British tele station brought on a doctor of English from Oxford to convince the public that sometimes it IS correct to use "me" when mentioning another person.

"Good night from Vanessa and I!"

[mistress_elaine]

God, yes. That drives me up the wall. And there are so many people who say it!

[glossypaper]

Definitely. If you take out the second person, and just say "Goodnight from I" then that would be incorrect. That's why "Goodnight from me and Vanessa" sounds better.

Conversely, from the "Me and Kate are going shopping" comment below: "Kate and I" would be correct because you can leave out Kate and still have "I am going shopping" instead of "Me am going shopping"

[fflo]

Here there's also a simple technical grammatical reason that the objective is called for in the first case: "me" and "Vanessa" are objects of the preposition "from." In the second case both are subjects, so nominative is needed.

[angstycoder]

"Mary and I both turn 65 next year, I in January, she in December."

You wouldn't say me turn 65 in January.
I turn 65 in January, so I in Januray :)

<== Columbus, Ohio, USA. Native speaker.