I’ve recently noticed a very common grammatical error creeping into a lot of written and spoken communication.

It has to do with confusing the subjective and objective forms of the first person singular pronoun.

Sound complicated and technical? Not really. Here’s what I mean:

“He is anxious to discuss this issue with you and I.”

(Microsoft Word is up on this one, and underlined “I” for me when I typed it out.)

In this sentence “you and I” is an objective phrase following the preposition “with.” “You,” of course, is the same in the subjective and objective. But the objective form of the first person is “me.” So to be correct, the sentence should read, “He is anxious to discuss the issue with you and me.”

But there’s something about “I” that sounds, well, grammatical to many of us. And it would be if the sentence read, “He is anxious that you and I discuss the issue with him.”

Does it really matter? Ah, there’s the rub. The meaning is clear either way. This is, I’m afraid, a grammar-for-grammar’s-sake issue.