One trick to use when checking your grammar is to remove part of your sentence and see if it still makes sense.
I find this useful when considering if “I” should be used instead of “me”.
Think about the sentence I have just written and substitute “Me” for the initial “I” – “Me find this useful…” just does not make any real sense in that context and “I” is correctly used.
Now think about this sentence:
“They gave my father and I drinks at the pub.”
That sounds natural and correct to me but it is not correct – remove “my father” and you would have “They gave I drinks at the pub.” which sounds wrong and indeed it is – using “me” is better, so:
“My father and me were bought drinks at the pub.”
Now look at this example:
“My son and I went to the park.”
Removing “My son” leaves us with “I went to the park.” and that is correct – in this instance “I” is correctly used rather than me.
I see “myself” used to get around this grammatical conundrum but that just seems clumsy.
When using the sentence, “They gave my father and I drinks at the pub.”, as an example of the incorrect use of “I” and “me”, then the correction could simply be, “They gave my father and me drinks at the pub.”
The sentence “My father and me were bought drinks at the pub.” does not have clarity. If “my father” was taken out of the sentence, then it would be correct to say, “I was bought drinks at the pub.” The sentence should then read, “My father and I were bought drinks at the pub.”
Good advice! Sometimes a little extra effort pays off big for clarity. Proofreading is critical but doesn’t have to be tedious. Make it a game with others and it can actually be fun.