Grammar Girl here. This week I have a quick and dirty tip about pronoun order. A great

piece from Gretchen McCulloch about why we get confused about pronouns such as me and

I. And a tidbit about the difference between emoticons and emoji. People often ask how

to combine nouns and pronouns. For example, is it send the letter to squiggly and me,

or me and squiggly? Is it you and our adverk should come or our adverk and you should

come? The answer is a little tricky because there's an exception. The rule is to put

pronouns first, unless that pronoun is I or me. Think of it this way. Me first is a bad

attitudin life, and it's a bad approaching grammar too. When you put yourself in a list

with others, it's a rule of politeness to put yourself last. Squiggly and I went shopping.

Please send the letter to squiggly and me. Those are correct. Imagine that you're opening

a door and letting everyone else in the sentence go ahead of you. You're so polite. Otherwise,

pronouns go first. She and squiggly went shopping. Send the letter to her and our adverk.

And that was your quick and dirty tip. Next, Gretchen McCulloch of all things linguistic

wrote this explanation about why people get confused about pronouns. She writes,

a recent episode of the autobiography of Jane Error, which is a fantastic web series

that has nothing to do with linguistics, but you should check out anyway. Provides an

excellent example of the difficulties people have with you and I versus you and me. The

relevant portion is an episode 59 between two minutes and 50 seconds and three minutes

and 13 seconds. We'll put a link to it in the transcript at quickandirtytips.com. But

here's what it says. Diana, if you need anything, just let Mary or me know. Mary, it's Mary

or I. Diana, it's Mary or me. Mary, no, it's actually Mary or I. Jane, actually, I think

it's Mary or me. Mary, you're right, because if I wasn't here, you wouldn't say let

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