Grammar

[druiaghtagh]

Me and you, you and i , at school more than 30 years ago was taught it should be you and I, however i never hear anybody using it these days, so does the rule still hold fast please ?

[anthomson]

In my opinion language is about effective communication and is something that is constantly changing. Any attempt to formalize language has to take account of this fact. I am not saying we shouldn't attempt to formalize the language and apply rules - we need some rules to make the language work - but there doesn't seem much point defining the 'Queen's English' if she is the only person who uses it. Language belongs to the masses, it is the masses who have to use it.

[Quizmonster]

Druiaghtagh, you don't give any context in which you imagine the phrases being used. As Einstein says, where the phrase is used in the objective case - for example when using 'between' - it should be 'you and me'. However, where the phrase is nominative, it should be 'you and I', as in, for example: "You and I are going to fall out over this!"..."You and I were made for each other" and so forth.

Out of sheer politeness, rather than grammatical correctness, it is usual to put the other person first, as I did in the last two examples. Hence, 'me and you' is still - in my opinion (but then, I'm getting on) - a no-no in any circumstances. As the other earlier answer said, however, language belongs to the people who use it, As a result, none of us says: "I" when - after we've knocked on a door - the occupant shouts: "Who is it?" We all say: "Me", despite the fact that that is grammatically incorrect.

[JFK]

"It is I, Leclerc."

[woofgang]

Bach in tne jurasssic period ,when I went to school, I was taught a simple rule. Remove the other person from the sentence and decide whether, if you were just talking about yourself, you would say "I" or "Me"so... "He looks like me" becomes "He looks like the Loch Ness Monster and me" "I'm going to the fair" becomes Spiderman and I are going to the fair". On from there, the first instance should be "he looks like you and me" and the second "You and I are going to the fair" BUT does anyone else remember being taught inversion for emphasis? As recall, this meant that for added emphasis "me" could be used instead of "I" So "You're not going with that other person...you and me are going" and of course "Who's there?" "Me" Too much serious stuff for a Sunday morning, me, I'm going for a Calippo

[bernardo]

Most of the previous answers are correct, but very long-winded. The straightforward answer is that it should be "you and I" if it is nominative (subject) and "you and me" if it is accusative (object).

[Quizmonster]

With reference to my earlier answer and my point that there was no context provided in the question, there are, of course, circumstances in which 'me and you' is a conceivable word-sequence.

Consider the sentence: "Everyone turned against me and you did not support me." Here, the 'me' is objective and the 'you' is nominative, whereas we have all been talking about situations in which both pronouns are in either one or the other case. (Certainly, that is what I meant when I said that 'me and you is a no-no'.) But, in the absence of context, what made any of us think that had to be so?

Brevity is, as Bernardo says, generally an admirable quality but not necessarily so if it involves ignoring about two thirds of the question's ramifications!

[woofgang]

boy, that Fowler sounds like a humourless (insert noun here) doesn't he??

[Maudlettice]

Me'n'u is for caffs. Like "can I have a fork'an'knife"?