The following is a reader submission.
Last week, I received an email from someone who wanted to know how to properly write a birthday greeting, specifically:
Happy birthday from Sue and I or Sue and me?
I have seen a few people ask questions similar to this, so I thought I’d turn my response into a blog post.
The correct form would be “Happy birthday from Sue and me.” One trick to remember is to split the sentence in two for each person:
- Happy birthday from Sue.
- Happy birthday from me. (“Happy birthday from I” wouldn’t make sense.)
I is the nominative singular first-person pronoun and me is the objective singular first-person pronoun. What that means is that me is used when speaking about yourself as an object:
- John gave the hot peppers to me. (John is the subject, me is one of the objects)
- Sue went to the library with me. (Sue is the subject, me is one of the objects)
- Jose bought a candy for me. (Jose is the subject, me is one of the objects)
- Mishti jumped her motorcycle over me. (Mishti is the subject, me is one of the objects)
You get the picture. If you are the one performing the actions, then use I. If the action is being performed upon you, use me.
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