My wife and me -or- my wife and I?

...my wife and me.

Me.

Break the sentence up and you will see why:

"I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife."

"I offer practical advice based on personal experience of me."


"My wife and I" only works if both are subjects:


"My wife and I work for the same company."

"Our marriage is bigger than my wife and I (are)."

This is a bifurcated subject X and X/ or object. The answer to your question is based on the context of the sentence, whether it is the subject or the object.

Where you would say "I went to the store." I being the subject (You wouldn't say "Me went to the store," would you?) You would say "(My wife and) I went to the store."

If it is the object, "Timmy invited me (and my wife, or my wife and) to the party)"

You wouldn't say "Timmy (the subject) invited I to the party," you would say "Timmy invited me (and my wife)."

When you have this question again, just take the "my wife" out of the equation.
At this site, they have EXACTLY this question. See the last entry on the page. Good luck.

http://www.writersservices.com/res/ml/r_factsheet_6.htm

Queen Elizabeth is using incorrect grammar in this case, and the world seems to know it. This speech pattern is attributed to her alone, and so certainly, you should go with common usage, and not one person's idiosyncrasies.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/252950.html

"me"

It's the object of a preposition, so it's objective case.

I asked him about it, he insisted it was correct, I disagree, even the Queen says "my husband and I"

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This sentence--well, it's actually not a sentence--is severely flawed. Trust your editor.

Queen Elizabeth is using incorrect grammar in this case, and the world seems to know it. This speech pattern is attributed to her alone, and so certainly, you should go with common usage, and not one person's idiosyncrasies.

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But when the Queen says "My husband and I" she may well be using it as the subject of the sentence: "My husband and I thank you for coming today." Certainly wouldn't be "my husband and me".

Anyway, it's the Queen's English, and she can say what she wants!

Manny said:

I am at final edit for my book, in one line I wrote........

"I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and I."

The guy who has done some of my editing (into US grammar) edited it to say........

"I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and me."

I asked him about it, he insisted it was correct, I disagree, even the Queen says "my husband and I"

Can you learned folks please advise me on this please? Which is correct?

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"My wife and me."

A good way to gauge this is to take out "My wife and" and see what would be correct if you were just including yourself.

I offer practical advice based on personal experience of I.

Or

I offer practical advice based on personal experience of me.

Using this gauge, you should be able to better tell what works, and what doesn't.

I hope this helps.

Use Her Name said:

Queen Elizabeth is using incorrect grammar in this case, and the world seems to know it. This speech pattern is attributed to her alone, and so certainly, you should go with common usage, and not one person's idiosyncrasies.

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The Queen used to preface her Christmas Day speech with the words "My husband and I"

I don't think she still does this but I do recall her saying it on more than one ocassion.

I do not think the Queen is using incorrect grammar in this instance. If you took out "My husband and" from the speeches she gave, they will still make perfectly good sense. Agreed it does appear maybe a little clumsy but not grammatically incorrect.

She did make us laugh though when she did use it

It depends on what follows the "me" or the "I." If you're grammar obsessed you want to look into subject/object/indirect objects and pronouns. This is one of the left overs from English as a Germanic language.

My wife and I offer advice based on personal experience.

My wife and me offer advice based on personal experience.

I offer advice works; me offer advice doesn't.

But

I offer practical advice based on [the] personal experience of my wife and I.

I offer practical advice based on [the] personal experience of my wife and me.

... personal experience of I doesn't work.

... personal experience of me, works, but is more'n a little awkward.

Me, I'd ditch 'em all.

My advice is based on the personal experience my wife and I have had ... yadda yadda yadda

My wife and I have had personal experience that leads us to believe that someone is out to get my wife and me.

John Paton said:

The Queen used to preface her Christmas Day speech with the words "My husband and I"

I don't think she still does this but I do recall her saying it on more than one ocassion.

I do not think the Queen is using incorrect grammar in this instance. If you took out "My husband and" from the speeches she gave, they will still make perfectly good sense. Agreed it does appear maybe a little clumsy but not grammatically incorrect.

She did make us laugh though when she did use it

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If it is used as the subject it is correct. I think the compromise comes when she decided to use it as an object. I'm not a perscriptavist, I am a vernacularist. I love her little royal voice. As far as I'm concerned she can do whatever she wants as long as it does not involve an axe and my head.

oh-- it depends on whether you see the subject as being two people or one.

Medievalist said:

... personal experience of me, works, but is more'n a little awkward.

Me, I'd ditch 'em all.

My advice is based on the personal experience my wife and I have had ... yadda yadda yadda

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I agree with that. And why's "experience of me" awkward?

Well, more idiomatic would be: "experience of mine". It's the much debated double possessive. And here's your problem:

1. a) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of mine."
1. b) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of me."

b) is correct enough, but I prefer a). There's no contest, as far as I'm concerned.

2. a) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife's."
2. b) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife."

Here, my judgement's less clear. I think I might lean towards the second in writing, myself, but reading I wouldn't think twice about either.

Now, if you co-ordinate both you run into trouble.

3. a) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife's and mine."

This sounds fine to me, but some people might not like the ambiguity inherent in this. Are the experiences separate (your wife made her experiences and you made yours), or are the experiences something you share? Personally, I'd think context takes care of the ambiguity, so it's no big deal. (If it's marriage advice, I'd assume it's experience together, for example.)

Of course, English has a way to stress that you're talking about a unit: "of George and his wife's". See? Only the last item gets the possessive 's, and it's clear what comes before is a unit.

However, you run into a problem with the nasty pronouns, which have irregular possessives. What you end up with is:

3.b) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and mine."

Um, no. This sounds distinctly odd. It doesn't look like the [wife + I]'s version. Rather it looks like you're using a single genitive for the wife, but a double for yourself. Not really. No.

So, what if you treat it as a unit: []'s? Take the genitive out of the pronoun? Move it to the end of the co-ordinated possessors?

3.c) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and I's."

There's logic to it, but - um - no, not really.

So, perhaps the best way would be just to do away with the double genitives?

4. a) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and me."

Realise how this is the version you've chosen? Of those mentioned, it's probably the best. Even though I'd never say "experience of me" and always "experience of mine", I'd make an exception for the me-version in this special case. Why? I don't like to mix; i.e. using one single genitive and one double genitive:

4. b) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and mine."

Not really, no.

See how 4. b) and 3. b) are exactly the same, but arrived at by different reasoning? (To my mind, 4. b) takes precedence when reading; that is, on reading, the 4-b reasoning will always come to me first.)

So, of all the versions here, I'd chose either 4. a) (which you chose in the original post), or 3. a), given that the context does take care of the inherent ambiguity of that sentence. But luckily we're not forced to choose and can re-write the sentence in the way Medievalist has suggested. Best to write around the problem.

Isaac Espriu said:

As everybody else has said (i'm always late to the grammar parties) the second sentence is the correct one. It, however, would read even better like:

"I offer practical advice based on the personal experiences of my wife and me."

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I'd probably say, "I offer practical advice based on the personal experience of my wife and myself."

(Assuming, of course, that it was a common experience, such as child-raising; and not separate experiences such as climbing two different mountains.)

"This advice is drawn from the personal experiences my wife and I have shared."

"My wife and I" = subject
"My wife and me" = object

Your editor is right.

When I read that sentence, all I could think of was, "Of course it's your personal experience. Who else's experience would you have had?" Typical nonfiction overwriting. Ick.

Dawnstorm said:

I agree with that. And why's "experience of me" awkward?

Well, more idiomatic would be: "experience of mine". It's the much debated double possessive. And here's your problem:

1. a) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of mine."
1. b) "I offer practical advice based on personal experience of me."

Click to expand...

The use "of mine" or "of me" are, while technically correct, not standard usage in Modern English, British or colonial upstart.

And I'd ditch the wife, grammatically speaking, completely.

I offer practical advice based on my own experience.

Simple, short and declarative.

If you want to include the spouse, give her her own sentence; she deserves it

Medievalist said:

The use "of mine" or "of me" are, while technically correct, not standard usage in Modern English, British or colonial upstart.

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Examples aren't hard to find. Simple "my" in the appropriate place ("my personal experience") is cerainly more common.

And I'd ditch the wife, grammatically speaking, completely.

I offer practical advice based on my own experience.

Simple, short and declarative.

If you want to include the spouse, give her her own sentence; she deserves it

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I wouldn't ditch her, if the advise is, say, about marriage and I'd want to express a certain sense of togetherness early on. Somehow a second sentence along the lines of "My wife helped, too," sounds a bit subordinate. [You probably had something more dignified in mind?]

Does: "I offer practical advice based on my wife's and my personal experiences" work? (I, too, would lose "personal".)

The best way to tell whether you should be using "I" or "me" is to take "wife" out of the sentence and see how it would look.

"I offer practical advice based on personal experience of my wife and I." would be

"I offer practical advice based on personal experience of myself." (or me)

"The practical advice in this book is based on the experiences my wife and I had doing {whatever it is the book is about}."