Me and you, you and me?
For a title of a paper I am writing, I want to say something like, Me and Blackey (the name of a dog), or Blackey and me, or something along those lines.
Would it be incorrect to make the title "Yo y Blackey"? I just wanted to check before I print the final copy. Thanks!
10 Answers
Count me as one who thinks the English title should be Blackey and Me. As a book title I cannot imagine calling it Blackey and I, at least not in English.
And, in my view, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is a children's book or not. To me it is simple. In this case, the words Blackey and Me are not the subject of a sentence since there is no verb anywhere in the phrase—neither stated nor implied. Therefore, there is no grammatical requirement to choose I or Me and; so, you can choose the one that sounds the best to you and your audience.
Furthermore, titles of this nature (whether for children or for adults) frequently do follow the pattern of So-and-so and Me (like the Marley & Me example provided by chruhlman).
So, no grammar rule rule I know of contradicts titling the book Blackey and Me. In fact, to say Blackey and I (as a title of a work) sounds downright odd to me.
Now, in Spanish, it would be Blackey y Yo. It is not even an option to say Blackey y Me. But that's Spanish, not English. To me, it seems English puts pronouns in the objective case (me) if its relation to a verb is unknown whereas it appears Spanish puts them in the nominative case (yo) instead.
Had you said you were going to title the book Blackey and Me Go on a Hike, I'd be the first to say it should be Blackey and I Go on a Hike. Likewise, had you suggested a title of All about Blackey and I then I would have informed you that it should be All about Blackey and Me, but your title is just Blackey and Me and there is no context to tell if Blackey and Me are performing actions, are having actions performed on them, or are objects of prepositions; so, I can't think of a rule that says you must choose one or the other, but I can say that most people choose ME in such a case, especially when it's the title of a book or movie or whatnot.
I'm not saying no English book or movie in the world might not use "Blackey and I." I'm saying that, in this particular case, I think it is not a question of grammar but of style, and "Blackey and I" (when said without any other context) sounds very formal whereas "Blackey and Me" sounds more warm and informal. Since there is no grammar rule to say you can't, then choose the warmer, more informal-sounding one.
Well, that's my 2 cents.
Blackey y Yo sounds nicer.
'Yo y XXX' sounds really nasty, it is always said 'XXX y yo'.
Incidentally, a very famous book of Spanish literature is titled 'Platero y yo', where Platero is the name of a donkey.
No, I do want to use Blackey and Me, because it is a childrens book with the narrator being a little girl, so for my purpose, I would like it to be "Me", Thanks anyways. -
It's your title, so do as you wish. Some grammarians will be offended but your intended audience appears to be those too young to be aware of the distinction. Either they will eventually learn that your title is "ungrammatical" or they won't (or they will but they won't care).
I find your implicati0n, that, because they are little children, teaching ungrammatical structures is OK/preferrable, a bit odd. (In my experience with little children, using "I' presents no problem).
In any event, do as you wish! It is most unlikely that your title will be paradigm shifting for anyone (much less little children). Children are constantly exposed to "bad" grammar. Some overcome these obstacles, most do not. However, the very fact that most do not, provides comfort/support for the ungrammatical.
It is customary to put the reference to yourself last. This is not a grammatical issue but one of usage (so as not to sound too egotistical/self-centered).
Your English sentence fragments, on the other hand, are (almost certainly) grammatically incorrect. "me" is the objective/accusative case (object of a verb/preposition) and it's very difficult to construct a proper English sentence by starting with the object. In all likelihood, "Blackey and I ..." is what you mean. You could get yourself off of the hook by, for example, saying "About Blackey and me" or "The adventures of Blackey and me" or some such.
On the other hand, using "me" as you have done is a very common mistake so you'll have lots of company.
I agree with Echoline, perhaps Spanish is the same as English where - 'so and so and I' is correct but 'me and him' is nasty 
Concerning the distinction in English between Me and Blackey, or Blackey and I, obviously Blackey and I is proper English, but there is a very popular book/movie that came out a couple of years ago called....
Marlee and Me
I don't think that anyone had any trouble understanding what the movie was about.
Another thought...
I would consider converting Blackey and all names in the book to Spanish equivalents. If Spanish equivalents don't exist, I would choose nice-sounding Spanish names at random for the characters.
I don't know if Spanish people have the custom of naming their dogs after their hair color (I would imagine they do), so I don't know what the equivalent of Blackey would be. If there isn't an equivalent, I would try to find out some common Spanish names for pet dogs.
But that's just a thought, a suggestion, that's all.
Well if you were talking about two people then mentioning first the other person it would be the best... however you're talking about an animal so my advice is mentioning yourself first...
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