Subject, Predicate, I, Me, Ayudeme!

When The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their first, formal appearance at a Garden Party celebrating the Prince of Wales 70th birthday, a speech was given by the newly minted duke. The text of which was released, slowly, tweet by tweet, by the official Twitter Handle of Clarence House, which handles the social media for the Prince of Wales. In one specific tweet quoting the text an academic debate broke out because the duke had used the words "William and I" and many people, including yours truly, believed it would be grammatically correct for him to say "William and me." ,

So here is the link to the Tweet in question.  And here is the quote.

You have inspired William and I, and looking out here today, it is clear to see we are not alone.

Now, the best reason this inspired any kind of debate, is because this is a formal speech, using formal diction, and presumably, at least given the once over by a professional speech writer so that the speech was scrubbed for grammar and spelling errors. (Of course this is Twitter, so we could be just a bunch of cranks who will nit pick anything.) 

The crux of this debate is whether "William and I" is in the subject or the predicate the sentence. If it is the subject, "William and I" is correct; if it is in the predicate, then it should be "William and me". And is it that simple? Since I am an American, and my opposition tends to be British, then we should decide on a set of rules to abide by. Since this is a British Royal, giving a British speech, in Great Britain, I will abide by the rules set forth by the Oxford Dictionaries website. 

The debate in question is over the use of a pronoun, so let us see what Oxford has to say: A word that can function as a noun phrase used by itself and that refers to participants in discourse (such as I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (such as she, it this). Origin: Late Middle English:  from pro - on behalf of , + noun suggested by the French pronom, Latin pronomen (from pro - for, in place of, + nomen 'name'.) (Retrieved May 24, 2018.)

And now to the grammar usage from the same site: We are concerned with I definition 3 which is where Oxford Dictionaries . com gets to the pronoun (We will ignore the West Indian here for the moment). "pronoun, 1st person singular-referred to the speaker to refer to himself or herself."
(Retrieved May 24, 2018)

Me is define this way : "pro noun, 1st person singular, Used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself as the object of a verb or preposition." (Retrieved May 24, 2018).

Now for the grammar between the two:  "Use the pronoun I, along with other subjective pronouns such as we, he, she, you and they, when the pronoun is the subject of a verb. " (Retrieved May 24, 2018).

And then, a little bit further down the same page: " Use the pronoun me, along with other objective pronouns such as us, him, her, you and them, when the pronoun is the object of a verb or preposition."  (Retrieved May 24, 2018).

So now we go back to the original text and break it apart. What kind of a sentence do we have? At first glance it looks like a compound sentence, which would be two independent clauses joined together with the word and. (Actually this is a complex, compound sentence, but since the dependent (subordinate) clause comes in the second half of the compound sentence and is not part of the dispute, we won't go down that rabbit hole today.) So, let us check this hypothesis. Are there two full sentences in the quote? Let's cross out the word and so we can rewrite the sentences separately. 

You have inspired William and I.

Looking out here today, it is clear to see we are not alone.

So both of those are perfectly good sentences. Next we take  on the first sentence and cross out William, since the use of William is not in dispute, and we get:

You have inspired I.

Now that should sound strange. But why? Because we have finally gotten to the subject/object (predicate) part of identification in the sentence. The verbal phrase in this sentence is "have inspired". So the subject is the part of the sentence that performs the action and who or what performed the action? In this sentence that is you. Leaving the I to be the object, or the noun or pronoun, receiving the action. And since me, not I is the pronoun that should receive the action, me would be correct. So the grammatically correct sentence would read:

You have inspired William and me, and looking out here today, it is clear to see we are not alone.

This is what is grammatically correct in English no matter which side of the "The Pond" you reside. So then, why the confusion. Remember back up there when I said we would set aside the "West Indian usage?" According to Oxford, this would be the correct usage in the West Indian context. Remember, dictionaries and grammar guides show how language is used. The most rigid form is the formal diction of a formal speech, as is the case here. But if you close you eyes and say the sentences out loud, I will agree that poetically the I sounds better.  And what is a speech without poetry? This is why the I appeared. And those of us, like me, who think me is "proper" are being more than a bit pedantic.  However, I would argue, that while I have proved me in this I/me usage case, if it is acceptable for even the most formal of speeches, with formal diction, to have a misusage, it is past time we judged people on their use of language. After all, none of us is perfect. 

And now, back to your far more exciting lives. 

Love,

Melanie