You are sure to get confused between the pronouns I, me, and myself. They are basically personal pronouns used in replacement of nouns. However, three of them have different functions and are to be treated differently.
Is I and my colleague grammatically correct?
Yes, the simple answer is that the phrase “I and my colleague” is a correct phrase. It stands grammatically right, and there is no fault in it. Such a phrase, where we use I representing ourselves, we refer to ourselves and the colleague as the subjects. Had it been a case of objective pronouns, instead of I, we would have used “me and my Colleague”.
So, the phrase I and my colleague is a grammatically correct phrase. Whenever the speaker is referred to as a subject, the use of the subjective pronoun I can never be wrong. But in case the speaker is considered to be the object of a sentence, then the use of the objective pronoun me will come into play. That means me is being acted upon instead of it doing something.
For example:
- They were laughing at me and my colleague.
- I and my colleague decided to work the entire week.
- The boss fired me and my colleague for disobedience.
- I and my colleague are hosting a party later tonight.
So, we can see that the use of I and my colleague in a subjective perspective stands grammatically correct. And it is important to not confuse the use of me and I.
It’s been over 40 years since I escaped from high school, but I still remember the way it was taught to me how to correctly decide to use I or me. Drop the second subject of the sentence and listen to it. “I did this or that” sounds good, so “I and my colleague did this or that” is correct. “That was done by me” sounds good, so “that was done by me and my colleague” is correct. This may be over-simplified, but it’s worked well enough for me!