I or Me

Anothre Guest   Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:16 pm GMT
"me" is the object of "is". "me" is the objective case.
12345   Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:32 am GMT
In English classes we used to learn 'Zack and I'.

Also from a Dutch perspective I cannot understand how 'Zack and me' can be correct.

Me is a direct object. And as both Dutch and English are Germanic languages they are prone to follow the same rule. German also does this.

But I think 'me' is accepted as the quality of languages are degrading, I see it in the Dutch language as well. But to my opinion a direct object can never be a subject.

Zack and I are both subjects of a sentence.
Zack and I are speaking.
Who/what are speaking? Zack and I.

It's very simple to find out whether you should use me or I.
Travis   Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:16 am GMT
In actual English dialects as actually spoken, it does not seem quite as solid:

While in the oblique case, "me" is consistently found, aside from the occasional hypercorrective use of "I" in coordinate constructions.

In the nominative case, things are not so simple, though. Outside a coordinate construction, "I" is consistently found. However, in coordinate constructions there seems to largely be free variation between "I" and "me", the choice and placement of which in such being more a matter of register and style than anything firmly fixed syntactically.

More specifically, in higher registers, one normally encounters "<x> and I", but in less high registers one commonly actually hears "me and <x>", especially in the case of "me and my <x>". In between register-wise, one will also somewhat less commonly hear "<x> and me", but note that one will only very rarely hear "my <x> and me".
Entbark   Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:05 pm GMT
Just because languages change does not mean that "the quality of languages are degrading." If anything, languages adapt and evolve to fit our needs. How do you define the quality of a language?
12345   Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:43 am GMT
«Just because languages change does not mean that "the quality of languages are degrading." If anything, languages adapt and evolve to fit our needs. How do you define the quality of a language? »

Some changes in languages I call evolving others I call degrading.
The I/me situation is a degrading one for me. Why? Because such things, using 'me' instead of 'I', means to me people who are using 'me' oftenly don't know the differences between them.

The same is happening in Dutch with zij/hun stuff. If 'hun' once becomes third person plural instead of 'zij' it's just because many people don't know they have to use zij, so they make it easier for these people.