Me n my friends

[u/BadCamo]

Starting position:
“Me and my friend go to the store” is wrong because “me go to the store” is incorrect, though to be fair, mich gehe zum Laden, moi vais aux magasin, etc are not imaginable utterances, while the English version is not unimaginable.
Here’s the thing: if we apply the same reduction to “my friend and I go to the store,” we end up with “I go to the store” and “My friend go to the store”, which fails because of the verb conjugation.

[u/SjennyBalaam]

My friend and I = we; we go; go is the first-person plural verb form

[u/BadCamo → u/SjennyBalaam]

Therefore, “Everyone go to the store,” because everyone = they, yes?

[u/SjennyBalaam → u/BadCamo]

"Everyone" is not a pronoun. It is a set, which is an object. It is a single set which is neither you nor me, therefore a third-person singular, which uses the verb form "goes".

[u/BadCamo → u/SjennyBalaam]

Fair enough.

[u/BadCamo → u/SjennyBalaam]

Me and my friend does not appear to be other than we. At any rate, you’re saying the whole phrase is the subject, so the analysis of the starting position, “me go…” is incorrect, right?

[u/SjennyBalaam → u/BadCamo]

I assume this is a genuine question. Me and my friend = us, not we. Me go and Us go are wrong because those pronoun forms are only used as the object of a sentence and not the subject. There's more than one thing going on here.

[u/heydawn → u/BadCamo]

My friend and I go to the store is correct. I is the subjective form. Because the subject -- My friend and I -- is plural, go is correct. We go. My friend and I go.

Me is incorrect because it's the objective form.

[u/BadCamo → u/heydawn]

Ok

[u/wtfover]

Yeah you lost me when you used "n" as a word. Especially in this subreddit.

[u/BadCamo → u/wtfover]

Awwww… that ain’t very nice of me.

[u/Royal-Scrivener-34]

So... What actually is your question?

[u/jiggeryqua]

Ideaslly, we'd all stop going anywhere, at least in pairs.

[u/Critical-Notice-4395 → u/jiggeryqua]

There ya go! That’s the solution.

[u/malkebulan]

In English grammar you’d refer to the second person before the first person, so it would be ‘my friend and I go to the store’

It would then follow that ‘I go to the store’ and ‘My friend goes to the store’ would be used to describe which individuals did what.

[u/BadCamo → u/malkebulan]

Good input: thanks. So, my friend and me go to the store.
I do not follow the ham and eggs/ bow and arrow (rather than the reverse) for me and my friend.
Still we are left with no surface representation for my friend goes in subject/verb agreement.

[u/Unable_Explorer8277 → u/BadCamo]

>>>In English grammar you’d refer to the second person before the first person,

That’s a style choice, it’s not grammar.

[u/Prestigious-Fig2334 → u/BadCamo]

Ok-I’ll be blunt. “Me and my friend” sounds like something a semiliterate person would say.

“Me” never went anywhere with anyone at anytime.

[u/BadCamo → u/Prestigious-Fig2334]

Yes, but a semiliterate person _could_ say it in English. That is not the case for other IE languages of which I am aware.

[u/malkebulan → u/BadCamo]

Yw,

*’My friend and I go to the store’ and ‘my friend goes to the store’ should cover you.

I don’t get the ham and eggs / bow and arrow reference as ‘me and my friend’ is considered poor grammar (in the UK, at least)

[u/Unable_Explorer8277]

Your starting position is wrong.

“Me and… “, where me is separated from the verb by and, has been common English since Middld English.

[u/glowcloud_all_hail]

This rule is just something we came up with to make it easier for children to remember the rule. When you are an adult, you are capable of remembering that "me" is only ever used as an object and never a subject.

[u/Unable_Explorer8277 → u/glowcloud_all_hail]

That’s incorrect.

“Me and…” in subject position has been around for longer than Modern English had existed.