Have you noticed?
Smart people who are otherwise well-spoken are still using the word "I" as an object.
If you're like me, it's jarring to read. Kind of like driving the car into a foot-deep 
pothole. But jarring is the least of your worries.
Using words incorrectly can cause some prospective clients to form a negative impression of the writer.
I don't understand why this error persists.
Nobody would actually write "Call I," but they write "Call Joe or I." They also write things like "Our son and daughter-in-law invited my wife and I for dinner last night." This year I also saw "Happy New Year from Mary and I."
It makes me cringe.
If you took Joe, the wife, or Mary out of these sentences, you wouldn't use "I" because it would sound goofy. You'd say "me."
Here's the rule:
- I is a subject word
- Me is an object word
Very few people get it wrong in the opposite direction - at least very few people over the age of 2 or 3. (Me want a cookie!)
REVISION: I stand corrected. As Fred Carver Personal Real Estate Corporation pointed out, some people do get it wrong in the opposite direction. They just aren't the people whose writing I've been reading in recent years, so I forgot about them.
Back in high school (where no one really bothered to teach grammar), a good number of my classmates said things like "Me and Joe went to the movies ." They said it fast, so it always came out sounding like "Mean Joe."
I also had a friend who said things like "Her and I," but that's yet another topic.
Meanwhile ... have you ever heard another agent say "Me previewed that new listing on Main?"
No, and I doubt that my high school acquaintances would have said "Me went to the movies." It's when you add another person that mistakes happen.
So here's how to make sure you follow the rule:
If you really aren't sure which word to use, simply take the extra person out of the sentence and say it out loud. Does it sound correct using I as the pronoun, or does it sound silly?
If you put the other person back in and use me rather than I, does it sound better?
Trust your ear!
Grammar Book courtesy of stuart miles at freedigitalphotos.net
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