I, Me or Myself? Don’t Try to Sound ‘Fancy’

Last Updated on February 20, 2022

The pronoun ‘me’ is a lot like Rodney Dangerfield: it gets no respect. But there are times when it’s the right choice. Here’s how to tell whether to use I, Me or Myself.

Sometimes, one of the worst things you can do as a user of English grammar is to attempt to sound “sophisticated” in your usage. The attempt to make speech sound more formal than it needs to be often leads to needless mistakes.

One of my readers here at Patrick’s Place, Carol, writes:

Bad grammar annoys me–too often. I’ve searched your site but haven’t found my pet peeve–the use of “I” instead of “me” after the word “and” as in “She will be joining Jim and I.” We wouldn’t say, “She will be joining I.” So why does this continue? Please inform people.

Those compound first person constructions are often made a lot more confusing than they ever need to be.

Too many of us, it seems, have something against poor little old me. They think I — or even worse, myself just sounds more “proper,” so they screw up their own grammar.

Carol’s example is the perfect test to know which is correct in a case of a personal pronoun combined with a proper name: remove the other name and see what’s correct.

She will be joining Jim and I.
She will be joining Jim and me.

Remove “Jim and” and leave only the first person pronoun. When you do that, the right choice is clear:

She will be joining I.
She will be joining me.

Me is the first person objective pronoun: in this case, me is the object of the sentence because it’s being acted upon instead of doing the acting itself.

But the same test works if the pair is the subject of the sentence as well:

Alice and I hope things will improve.
Alice and me hope things will improve.

Let Alice sit this one out and the correct choice immediately becomes clear:

I hope things will improve.
Me hopes things will improve.

“Alice and I” is a compound subject. I is the first person subjective pronoun, and in this sentence, I is the subject because it is doing the acting in the sentence: hoping for improvement.

In terms of personal pronouns, here are your choices:

SUBJECTIVE
Singular: I
Plural: We

OBJECTIVE
Singular: Me
Plural: Us

This brings us to myself. This is one of my biggest pet peeves, right up there with due to.

Some people, clearly thinking that myself sounds more formal than I or me, will try to force it into a sentence:

Lisa and myself are looking forward to the party.
The host surprised Lisa and myself with a gift.

Both of these are wrong.

Myself is a reflexive pronoun. This means that it must point back to something. Using myself without another personal pronoun is much like the image of a mirror with your reflection in it while you’re nowhere near it: that’s just creepy!

Myself can’t stand on its own and be reflexive. Consider:

I hurt myself with the hammer.

I is the subject. Myself is the object of the verb hurt, and because it refers back to the subject, myself is correct. It is a required part of the sentence because otherwise, we wouldn’t know who was injured by the speaker with the hammer.

The other reason to use myself is to intensify the subject I:

You can do whatever you want: I myself am going to the party.

It may sound a little melodramatic at times, but you can see that it adds an emphasis to I.

If you don’t have an I or me in a sentence for myself to point back to, then myself is the wrong choice.

I hope that clears up any confusion about the three pronouns! And I myself hope you won’t disappoint me with any incorrect usages!