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The sentence structure is a bit unusual, like this:

me is tired this morning

Is this proper use of the sentence structure? Shouldn't it be "Me am" instead? Considering sentences starting with "I" are in the form of "I am...".

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    me is interested to see this question answered...
    – nicael
    Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 11:48
  • Although we all know what Frank was talking about in his comment, it's not correct English. Often times, people use bad grammar/spelling in chat rooms on purpose, either to troll, for a laugh, or to save time by typing shorter stuff.
    – CRABOLO
    Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 17:31
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    /me is tired this evening
    – Frank
    Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 23:27
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    @cVplZ It's not a question of bad grammar for humor in this case, /me is an IRC command to represent an action, and is often used by people familiar with that command outside that context to represent the same thing, with the expectation that it will be recognized as such (and sometimes, it's not).
    – Jason C
    Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 23:59

3 Answers 3

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The simple answer is that you cannot use 'me' as the subject of a verb, unless you are talking about the word, as in 'Me' is the first person singular object pronoun.

Your sentence should be I am tired this morning or, for informal emphasis, Me, I am tired this morning.

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    Is that so? If possible, are there authenticable sources proving this?
    – Unihedron
    Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 11:52
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    Yes, pretty well every book on English grammar ever written will confirm that the first person subject pronoun is 'I', not 'me'. Some people use 'Me and [another person or people] as a plural subject form, but most style guides, teachers and examination boards do not consider this standard English.
    – tunny
    Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 11:56
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What you are referring to is a bit odd since it is not really "English", per se. As tunny states, you cannot use "me" as the subject of a verb.

However, the line of chat text you have quoted is actually:

/me is tired this morning

Note the leading slash. This is not meant to be proper English, the "/me" is a common command in IRC chat rooms to represent an action, and is often used online by people familiar with that command outside that context to represent the same thing, with the expectation that it will be recognized as such (and sometimes, it's not). In IRC, the /me would actually expand to the user's name, perhaps with a special color or indicator to indicate an "action". So the above would have been seen by others as something like:

Frank is tired this morning

As SE chat is not IRC, it does not recognize this as a command. It can be confusing to look at if you read it as English but really it is a form of chat-room "slang" for representing an action, and the original intent of "/me" was for interpretation by a computer, not a human.

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'Me' in this respect is considered ungrammatical by purist although it's most common in colloquial English. You of course know the joke: St. Peter (who has the key to heaven) asks the question: 'Who is the next?' Somebody replies: 'I am.' St. Peter: 'Teachers of English, you just stay at the end of the queue.'

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