How to sound more intelligent - part one

Some of the most common discrepancies in the spoken English language can weaken the best of us at the worst of times like a fatal chink on solid steel.

There are those of us who care enough to fix it, those of us who don't realise it's there, and those of us who don't care either way; after all, it's not like anyone else cares.*

*I do.

But it's one thing to have learnt good grammar before discarding it like a Best Buy circular because you opted for sounding cool rather than smart, and quite another thing to claim to appreciate things like brains, words and fountain pens, only to open your mouth and reveal to every passer-by that you are, in fact, the fountain pen. Don't look at me like you don't know what I mean.

Part one: there's a difference between I and me

At some point in our childhood we were saying things like, "Me and Jimmy are going to the park." But then our parents were all, "Jimmy and EYE," and they'd repeat this phrase a gazillion times like they had grammar tourrettes. Then we hit adolescence and stopped caring about our parents' wellbeings, and about grammar. Okay, fine, we never cared about grammar.

The problem was, thanks to the adults in our lives, the word 'me' was expunged from our vocabulary and replaced with the far more pristine 'I'. So, ironically, for the few brats young adults of us who might have once cared about grammar, there was no room left for 'me'.

Stuff we were taught as kids:

1. Don't say 'me'; say 'I'
2. Put yourself last. Say 'Jimmy and I', not 'I and Jimmy'.

Fun fact #1: rule 2 is table manners, not actual grammar.

Fun fact #2: 'me' still exists.

Stuff I've learnt as an adult:

1. People who say "me and Jimmy" don't care about the rules, whether or not they know them. 
2. People who say "Jimmy and I" do care about the rules, but, more often than not, only know half of them.

Here's the other half:

'Jimmy and I' is correct in this sentence: "Jimmy and I are going to the park."

'Jimmy and I' is incorrect in this sentence: "A man approached Jimmy and I and offered us candy from his van." Such a nice man.

You: Why is the second sentence incorrect?

Me: I'm glad you asked!

Method A - easy answer:

When you take "Jimmy" away from the sentence, you're left with "I".

     "Jimmy and I are am going to the park." :)

     "A man approached Jimmy and I and offered us me candy from his van." :(

The second example sounds silly, right? 'Me' should have been used instead of 'I'. 

     "A man approached me and offered me candy from his van."

Much better, now add Jimmy.

     "A man approached Jimmy and me and offered us candy from his van."

Easy, right? I'm getting goosebumps.

In short 
the phrase "Jimmy and I" is not always correct. To find out which of 'me' or 'I' is correct, simply get rid of Jimmy. He was more a neighbour than a friend, anyway.

Method B - boring/technical answer:

'I' is a subject pronoun; 'me' is an object pronoun. The subject is the thing that acts; the object is the thing that gets acted upon.

"Jimmy and I are going to the park."

In this sentence, Jimmy and I are the subjects. They are going to the park, which is the object.

"A man approached Jimmy and me and offered me candy from his van."

In this sentence, the man is the subject, and he's approaching the objects, which are Jimmy and me.

Other subject pronouns include 'he', 'she' and 'they'. Other object pronouns include 'him', 'her' and 'them'.

In short, stick with Method A.

Part two: how to use 'myself' correctly