Correct usage: With regard to my prior discussions with you and Tim, I would like

Could anyone pl help with the correct usage here. This sentence is meant to be a part of a professional email: -

With regard to my prior discussions with you and Tim, I would like to…

OR

With regard to my prior discussions with Tim and you, I would like to…

Thanks.

“You and Tim” sounds better. I don’t know of any rule, but I think we use the pronoun first, unless that pronoun is “I”.

Jamie, I guess it’s because of the Anglo-Saxon culture where people respect others a lot. :wink:

In the case of ‘You and Tim’, the speaker wants to show more respect to the person he’s speaking to.

In the case of ‘Tim and I’, the speaker wants to show more respect to Tim than himself.

I’d never thought of it that way, but you may be right.

I know it is ungrammatical, but many natives use this:
Me and my friend went to the party,
Me and Tom are friends

Do any of those sound natural to you, Jamie ?

They’re not natural to me, and they sound pretty bad. I guess they sound natural to the people who say them. The same people say things like, “Her and I went to the party,” and, “Him and I are friends.”

Hi Alex

Rather than say that they are ‘unnatural’, I would call them very informal. I would also add that these informal versions are not necessarily used by everyone (in AmE). I would say that there is probably a significant number of people who never use them.
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You’re being a master of understatement here.

Those versions are markers of social class and educational level. If you’re a native speaker and you say them, people will assume you have educational deficiencies. If you’re a native speaker and you write them, most people will assume you’re stupid. They’re about on the level of pronouncing “picture” and “pitcher” the same, in terms of the negative judgments they bring down on people. But they’re not as bad as saying “liberry”.

Hi Jamie

I’d agree that if this usage is carried over to more formal settings, many people will assume this to be an indication of a lack of (or deficiency in) education.
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It’s stigmatized even in less formal settings, if people happen to be paying attention. Many of my friends come from Appalachian families and blue-collar Polish-American families, and even they consider that usage “low class”. It’s nearly as bad as saying “shoulda went”.

How interesting…

liberry=liberty?
and what is “shoulda went”?

I always thought (and I am sure) that British (and American, and other English-speaking) people are extremely polite, attentive and well-brought-up. That’s why they put their friends’ names, or other people’s names first, then I. As for with you and Tim, we address this person, not Tim. And Tim doesn’t know whom we respect more. :slight_smile:

Hi Inga

I assume Jamie was referring to a spoken form of the word ‘library’.
And ‘shoulda went’ is a spoken form (equivalent) of ‘should have gone’.
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No, library. Children have trouble pronouncing that word, and so they usually pronounce it as “liberry” [laibɛri], similar to “strawberry” or “blueberry”. Most people start pronouncing it correctly by the time they’re 7 years old, but if they never do, people take it as an indication that the person has a low educational or cultural level.

It’s what some people say instead of “should have gone”.

Note that among native English speakers – at all levels of education – “should have” is pronounced [ʃʊdə], “would have” is [wʊdə], and “could have” is [kʊdə]. This makes the conditional hard to hear, so a lot of ESL students who have been around native speakers for years will think at first that they’ve never heard the conditional.

Ho, ho, ho! If you only knew! :smiley:

I think it’s more complex than that. I think with “you and Tim” the pronoun simply comes first, but we can put Tim first if we wish to give his name emphasis.

Thank you for your explanations. :slight_smile: I hope you will always explain such points to me, because I have no chance to hear such things here, in Belarus. Even when I listen to some interviews or records.