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Which order is more correct: me and my wife or my wife and me? The sentence in which this is used is

Ms. Smith informed me and my wife that she was afraid of being accosted.

Araucaria - Him
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Paula Giacinto
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2 Answers2

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According to Grammar Girl, it's "a rule of politeness" to put yourself last in the list:

Ms. Smith informed my wife and me that...

General Writing and Grammar help concurs, but does not offer any additional authorities on the matter.

The Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary offers the same advice: third-person, then second-person, finally first-person pronouns for general usage; mixing up the order is not necessarily rude, but can serve to emphasize the role of the speaker in the action, or as a cue that the speaker is talking informally or is less-educated.

Hellion
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  • This is a great find, upvoting. – Frantisek Nov 15 '11 at 16:22
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    And yet for this sentence, putting "me" second sounds rather awkward... – Izkata Nov 15 '11 at 20:39
  • This is how I've always heard it explained. Might be a politeness thing more than a hard rule though. – Ben Brocka Nov 15 '11 at 21:37
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    The combination he informed my husband and me sounds awkward, but he informed me and my husband/wife and me and my girl/boyfriend/best friend flows better. Whereas the "rule" I believe applies to the subject order "My family/children/friends/ husband/boyfriend/best friend and I". – Mari-Lou A Dec 14 '14 at 18:47
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    @Mari-LouA, it may sound awkward to you, but it sounds correct to me. :-) (Two of the given references do explicitly mention examples using the objective case, although one agrees with you that it "sounds awkward" and you would probably be better off using plural pronouns if possible.) – Hellion Dec 14 '14 at 19:59
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    To me (and I assume you also were speaking subjectively), he informed my husband and me sounds far better than he informed me and my husband. With pauses (before and), either way round sounds fine. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 14 '14 at 23:23
  • (1a) I don’t see anything in the Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary entry that really says anything about the relative order of 2nd person pronouns and 3rd person pronouns.  (1b) I don’t know how seriously I should take a site that presents a “Question” heading, the question title, an “Answer” heading, and then the question.  … (Cont’d) – Scott - Слава Україні Mar 13 '18 at 18:34
  • (Cont’d) …  (1c) The question is broken: It starts off saying «We were taught … that you comes next to last, and that any third-person pronoun comes first», but then gives the example [that correct usage is] «"You and her" not "Her and you"», which contradicts the introductory statement.  So the whole page is suspect.  … (Cont’d) – Scott - Слава Україні Mar 13 '18 at 18:34
  • (Cont’d) …  FWIW: (2) Grammar Girl says that pronouns (other than “I” and “me”) always come before nouns, so, according to that, it would be better to say “Ms. Smith informed you and your wife that...”.  (3) I seem to recall learning (as a cultural courtesy / politeness convention, but not necessarily a grammar rule) that it is preferable to put “you” first always, so I would say “You and she were informed …” or “I addressed the package to you and her.” – Scott - Слава Україні Mar 13 '18 at 18:34
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Both are correct, you can use any of them. They don't even bear any difference. The same would apply to:

I and my wife were informed that ...

versus

My wife and I were informed that ...

Frantisek
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    Just to put cats among pigeons, an alternative is 'Ms. Smith informed my wife and I that...' – Barrie England Nov 15 '11 at 16:44
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    @BarrieEngland: I don't think I agree with that. You're saying that "Ms. Smith informed I that ..." is correct. And it obviously isn't. – Frantisek Nov 15 '11 at 16:48
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    @RiMMER Ψ: ‘But why should we simply assume that the grammatical rules for case assignment cannot differentiate between a coordinated and a non-coordinated pronoun?’ (Huddleston and Pullum, ‘The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language’. Full text here on page 9: http://www.cambridge.org/assets/linguistics/cgel/chap1.pdf – Barrie England Nov 15 '11 at 17:08
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    @RiMMERΨ By that logic, you shouldn't say "My wife and I are pleased with your response" because you're saying that "I are pleased". – David Schwartz Nov 15 '11 at 17:13
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    @DavidSchwartz: but then you'd have no way to write the sentence at all. ("Me are pleased" wouldn't be any better.) The point is that this position in the sentence requires a subject ("I") rather than an object ("me"). – Alex Nov 15 '11 at 17:57
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    @Alex I agree that it requires a subject. The question is not whether "me" is a valid subject but whether "me and my wife" is a valid subject. The argument I'm responding to is that "me and my wife" is not a valid subject because "me" is not a valid subject and they have to have the same properties. But if they have to have the same properties, then if "I am pleased" is correct, so is "My wife and I am pleased". So the argument leads to nonsensical results and should be rejected. If "me and my wife" is not a legal subject, it's not because "me" isn't one. – David Schwartz Nov 15 '11 at 18:12
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    "I" is used for a subject; "me" is used for an object. I am not aware of any grammar rule that says that making something plural changes it from a subject to an object or vice versa. "My wife and I am pleased" is incorrect because "my wife and I" is plural and thus calls for a plural verb. The fact that a singular verb does not go with a plural noun does not in any way negate the fact that the subjective case should be used for subjects and the objective case for objects. – Jay Nov 15 '11 at 19:45
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    @David Schwartz, I disagree with your analysis; any noun can be used as either a subject or an object, but personal pronouns come in subject- and object-specific variations. Any element of a compound subject or object should be of the correct form. For nouns there is no issue, but when mixing a noun with a pronoun you need to use the correct form of pronoun. "He informed me" is correct; "Him informed I" is not. Modifying the verb for plurality does not affect the correctness of the subject/object agreement; "Him and I are pleased" makes the same mistake as "Him is pleased". – Hellion Nov 15 '11 at 19:49
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    Thanks for all your comments. I'm really just looking for which order is most correct. I know which are the proper words to use, i.e., my wife and me (not I) in this instance. I'm wondering whether it would be correct, though, to say me and my wife, perhaps as an emphasis that I was the one being spoken to, and my wife just happened to be there as well. – Paula Giacinto Nov 15 '11 at 20:02
  • @Hellion "Any element of a compound subject or object should be of the correct form." I agree. The question is, what's the correct form? So far as I know, there exists no argument that the correct form is the same as the form of the compound construction. If you know one, please share it. I've already presented an argument in the other direction -- the compound construction typically has properties different from its individual components, so there's no reason the individual components should have the same properties as the compound. – David Schwartz Nov 15 '11 at 20:17
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    @David Schwartz, The correct pronoun to use in a subject is the subjective pronoun. Likewise the correct pronoun to use for an object is the objective pronoun. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_pronoun. If I extend your argument logically, you're claiming that if I have two boxes, one large and one small, I can't call them both boxes because they have different sizes despite their identical attributes of cardboardiness, rectangular parallelepipedality, and hollowness. – Hellion Nov 15 '11 at 20:31
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    @Paula Giacinto, feel free to ignore the comments here, and focus only on the actual answers given. :-) – Hellion Nov 15 '11 at 20:32
  • @Hellion You are correct that the correct pronoun to use for an object is the objective pronoun. But we're not using the pronoun for an object, we're using it in one. Your argument that the correct pronoun to use in an object is the objective pronoun is just plain wrong. Consider: "The woman who loves me is awesome." By your argument, that should be "who loves I" since it's in a subject. (A lot of people think these simple rules make these structures wrong, but that is simply not true. Everyone else knows it -- that's why people so often get this 'wrong'.) – David Schwartz Nov 15 '11 at 20:43
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    @DavidSchwartz, all right, to make my terminology more precise: You should use an objective pronoun as an element of a simple compound object (such as "John and me" or "Fred, the Williamses, and the rest of us"). – Hellion Nov 15 '11 at 20:54
  • @Hellion Why should I do that? Every argument you've presented for why I should do that has been shown to be invalid. So far, your best argument was that "the correct pronoun to use in a subject is the subjective pronoun" but I showed that this argument leads to ridiculous results like "The woman who loves I is awesome". Do you have any arguments left? (And, again, I believe your claim is wrong. That's why you can't find any valid arguments to justify it. That's why people find it so hard not to say things like "Me and Jack went to the movies". They are right. Your rule is wrong.) – David Schwartz Nov 15 '11 at 22:17
  • @DavidSchwartz, "who loves me" in your example is a subclause, not the subject of the sentence. (The subject is "the woman.") Whereas in "my wife and I," those four words together are the subject. – Alex Nov 16 '11 at 00:01
  • @Alex That subclause is part of the subject, just as "and I" is in "my wife and I". – David Schwartz Nov 16 '11 at 00:16
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    @DavidSchwartz, you should do that because it's the rule that is supposed to be followed in these cases. Also "and I" is part of the subject clause, but it is not a member of the set of subjects. – Hellion Nov 16 '11 at 03:00
  • @Hellion You can justify anything by saying "it's the rule that is supposed to be followed in these cases". But you'll wind up judging the vast majority of native speakers to be wrong, which should cause you to question yourself. There is no logical reason for this rule -- as I showed, all the 'reasons' collapse. All you have is, "It's a rule because I say it is, and all those native speakers are wrong." – David Schwartz Nov 16 '11 at 03:24
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    @DavidSchwartz, your counter-reasoning is entirely specious. You are a good troll, I'll grant you that much. – Hellion Nov 16 '11 at 03:31
  • @Hellion The only difference between you and I is that I have presented valid arguments and refuted every argument you made while you have presented invalid arguments and questioned my honesty. – David Schwartz Nov 16 '11 at 03:38
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    @DavidSchwartz: "between you and me". Sorry, had to. :) – cHao Sep 29 '12 at 16:00
  • @cHao: That made the whole thread worth it! +10000000 – David Schwartz Sep 29 '12 at 19:52