"You and Me" or "You and I"

[DerMajo]

hello....
I just heard somebody saying: "Leave a bit more space between You and I!"

With my German background it totally sounds wrong to me.

For example I would say: "You and I are going on a trip tomorrow."
But I would say: "Leave a bit more space between You and Me!"

What is right and what is wrong? It seems like people use "You and I" and "You and Me" however they want.

 

[MikeNewYork]

hello....
I just heard somebody saying: "Leave a bit more space between You and I!"

With my German background it totally sounds wrong to me.

For example I would say: "You and I are going on a trip tomorrow."
But I would say: "Leave a bit more space between You and Me!"

What is right and what is wrong? It seems like people use "You and I" and "You and Me" however they want.

Yes, people say many things. Your two uses are correct. "Between" is a preposition and it takes pronouns in the objective case.

 

[panglossa]

hello....

But I would say: "Leave a bit more space between You and Me!"

Me too!!

 

[Rover_KE]

For example I would say: "You and I are going on a trip tomorrow."
But I would say: "Leave a bit more space between You and Me!"

What is right and what is wrong?

'...between you and me' is right.

As for the other examples, it is incorrect to capitalise 'you' and 'me' (unless they begin a sentence).

 

[Tdol]

Some people seem to think that between you and I is an example of high style. It isn't, and it drives many people crazy.

 

[5jj]

it drives many people crazy.

Really? That seems a bit OTT. It doesn't bother me at all.

:rainbowa:nfire::drinking::bday:nfire:

 

[Rover_KE]

It irritates the hell out of me.

:2gunfire:

 

[5jj]

It irritates the hell out of me. :2gunfire:

I suppose, if I am honest, it irritates the hell out of I, too.

 

[DerMajo]

Thank you for all your replies but I'm still not sure what is right and wrong.

So is "between you and I" right or just acceptable or totally wrong?

 

[Barb_D]

It is totally wrong to use "between you and I."

 

[DerMajo]

Thank you Barb_D...

That's what I wanted to know. Right when he said it, it sounded totally wrong to me.

 

[panglossa]

I agree with Barb - totally wrong (not to mention pretentious!)

 

[Barb_D]

I believe that people who use it aren't being pretentious (usually).

The problem is that they had used things like "Janey and me were talking" or "Mike and me saw a big frog" and got corrected so often as children that they are afraid of "me." They have learned to associated "me" with "wrong" and "I" with "right." Without really understanding the grammar, they know that when they talk with their friends, and say "Janey and me were talking" no one will have a problem, but they remember at some level that it's not corect, so they substitute "I" for "me" when they feel they need to be more careful.

 

[DerMajo]

Ok.... This kinda makes sense to me what you just wrote Barb.
But shouldn't everybody know the right way? Doesn't everybody learn this in school? This is what I don't understand.

Another thing I see a lot is that people write "should of" instead of "should've".

 

[Barb_D]

I don't know how it is where you live, but here, most native speakers have a very poor grasp of grammar. Yes, they had a few lessons in it in school, but I'd prefer my children spend their time in English class talking about how to write clearly than in memorizing terms like "ditransitive verbs" and "dependent clauses" or "direct objects."

"Should've" and "Should of" sound almost identical. It's not surprising people write it that way. We write what we hear. (It's one of the reasons I will sometimes write "hear" instead of "here" or vice versa - I certainly know the difference but my hands are typing what I hear myself saying in my head. (On the other hand, I'm annoyed by "try and" when it should be "tried to" but I've lost that battle.)

 

[MikeNewYork]

Ok.... This kinda makes sense to me what you just wrote Barb.
But shouldn't everybody know the right way? Doesn't everybody learn this in school? This is what I don't understand.

Another thing I see a lot is that people write "should of" instead of "should've".

For me, "should of" or "could of" is a marker of poor education.

 

[emsr2d2]

For me, "should of" or "could of" is a marker of poor education.

I can appreciate your point of view but I don't agree. In the UK, spelling and grammar are rarely "taught", so you can't really link it to education. Most people learn to speak by repetition so they say what they hear most frequently. They learn to write partly through their parents and through school but a lot of spelling and grammar is simply picked up by reading. However, we rarely see "could've/should've" written down so when people hear it, they think it sounds like "could of" or "should of" (or they think that the word which sounds like "couldve" must be written "could of". As Barb said, people write what they hear.

No-one is actually taught to say "could of" and "should of". They simply repeat what they hear (or what they think they hear) and it becomes ingrained.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I can appreciate your point of view but I don't agree. In the UK, spelling and grammar are rarely "taught", so you can't really link it to education. Most people learn to speak by repetition so they say what they hear most frequently. They learn to write partly through their parents and through school but a lot of spelling and grammar is simply picked up by reading. However, we rarely see "could've/should've" written down so when people hear it, they think it sounds like "could of" or "should of" (or they think that the word which sounds like "couldve" must be written "could of". As Barb said, people write what they hear.


No-one is actually taught to say "could of" and "should of". They simply repeat what they hear (or what they think they hear) and it becomes ingrained.

We can agree to disagree, but I find your explanation to be a poor excuse. The difference between writing what one hears and what is correct is education.

 

[Tdol]

For me, "should of" or "could of" is a marker of poor education.

There's worse out there- at least the meaning is clear enough with this one.

 

[DerMajo]

Ya there must be an educational problem. Even we learned the right way in Germany in school in our English lessons.