You have heard people say, “Me and Tommy waded through the creek to
reach safety;” or “Us four played volleyball during the
summer;” or “The real estate agent handed the house key to Tabitha and he.” These sentences are
incorrect. The rule is to use subjective
case when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence and to use the objective
case when the pronoun is an object of the verb or preposition. The following are objective and subjective
cases.
Subjective cases Objective cases
I, you, he, she, it we, they, who, whoever me, you, her, him, it, us, them, whom
whomever
The above incorrect sentences can be thus corrected.
Tommy and I waded
through the creek to reach safety.
In this sentence, the pronoun me was replaced with the proper subjective case I, which was put after the subject Tommy. Always put yourself last when you have
multiple subjects as a respect to the others.
We
three played volleyball during the summer.
The proper subjective case in this sentence is we.
The real estate agent
handed the house key to Tabitha and he.
The real estate agent
handed the house key to Tabitha and him.
In this sentence, the objective case him was used instead of he.