Grammar Police: Who vs. That and I vs. Me

Time for another installment of Grammar Police with quick reminders to help you avoid annoying grammatical errors you see and might make every day. For most of us, grammar lessons are a fuzzy distant memory, filed somewhere in your mind alongside the lyrics to Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” and quotes from The Cosby Show and Saved by the Bell.

So, unless you write for a living and apply these principles every week or every day, there are a few grammatical rules that can trip up even the best of us. This week, we are tackling who vs. that and I vs. me.

• Who vs. That

Who refers to people. That refers to objects. For example:

She is the girl who won first place.

He works for the company that makes ski and snowboard equipment. 

• I vs. Me

Both I and me are personal pronouns, which means they are used in place of nouns referring to specific people (i.e. I, me, you, yours, his, hers, them). Use the pronoun I when the pronoun is the subject of a verb. For example:

I went to the National Western Stock Show for the first time on Monday.

My husband and I took our son, also.

Use the pronoun me when it is the object of a verb or preposition. For example:

The outcome of the football game completely floored me.

The joke was on Ben and me.

When dealing with compound subjects (i.e. My husband and I OR Ben and me), a simple rule to determine whether to use I or me is to drop the other noun and see if the sentence still makes sense. Using the examples above:

I took our son, also. (You wouldn’t say Me took our son, also.)

The joke was on me. (The joke was on I is clearly incorrect.)

For some more reminders on other common grammatical errors including its vs. it’s, your vs. you’re, than vs. then and others, check out this previous Grammar Police blog. Are there any other grammar mishaps that trip you up? Let me know and I’ll devote an upcoming post to those. Until next time, live long and prosper…and use proper grammar!

-Stacey Sepp