<p>Which is correct:
The letter was intended for Besty and him, but the actual receipeints of the bad news were Peter and I
OR
The letter was intended for Betsey and him, but the actual recepients of the bad news was Peter and me.</p>
<p>Peter and me.</p>
<p>Thanks, that is what I SAID. Stupid Barrons.</p>
<p>Yeah, Barrons tends to make mistakes when it comes to providing a correct answer. But neither choice in this situation seems correct. It’s definitely Peter and me, but the verb is wrong- the recipients WAS Peter and me. The first choice has the correct verb, and the second one has the correct pronoun.</p>
<p>No, it should be Peter and I. I’ll elaborate on this later.</p>
<p>@Silverturtle: can you please tell me why? Barrons might be (prolly) is right, I just want to know why now.</p>
<p>I discuss this issue in my upcoming SAT and admissions guide. Here is a relevant excerpt (with a little contextual background):</p>
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<p>Likewise, in the clause actual recipients of the bad news were Peter and me, Peter and me is the compound predicate nominative of the subject recipients; that is, that compound phrase is defining the subject (were is a linking verb there). Thus, we use the subjective case: I.</p>
<p>I actually thought about that when I was taking the test- so is this sentence kind of inverted? (like the best runner is him). It still wouldn’t make sense how it would be “I” and not “him.” I don’t understand why the two people aren’t objects instead of being subjects.
Also @ vince: it was supposed to be were- my bad (typo) :D</p>
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<p>You only have objects when you are dealing with a transitive verb (I ate him) or a prepositional phrase (intended for him). What we have here is a subject complement, which means that a linking verb connects something that defines or modifies the subject. </p>
<p>As I explained in my guide, when we have a subject complement that is modifying the subject, we call it a predicate adjective (e.g., he is happy). If, however, the subject complement is not an adjective and is instead defining the subject, we call it a predicate nominative and we use the subjective case, which is what we have here.</p>
<p>If you aren’t quite as versed in grammatic structure and terminology as silverturtle, a simple way to look at this question would be to substitute another phrase for “Peter and I/me”.</p>
<p>“The actual recipients of the bad news were the police.”</p>
<p>Or, even more simply put, you could ignore the me versus I confusion entirely and focus on the fact that “recipients” is a plural subject, and therefore the verb must be “were”.</p>
<p>“The recipients…was…” is incorrect. “The recipients…were…” is correct.</p>
<p>^ We are discussing pronoun case, not subject-verb agreement.</p>
<p>@OP: Yes, I was also thinking in terms of objects rather than subjects. Thanks for clearing that up silverturtle</p>
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<p>How about this:</p>
<p>“The letter was intended for Betsey and him.” But, Peter and I were the actual recipients of the bad news. (I is right, me is not).</p>
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<p>Yes, but subject-verb agreement for the isolated clause “the recipients were/was” is the simplest method of approaching this question.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what you’re saying. How does subject-verb agreement help us to determine the appropriate case for the pronoun?</p>
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<p>Sure. If you have any suggestions for clarifying the wording in my guide’s explanation, I would appreciate them.</p>
<p>Peter and I.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t. What I’m proposing is that the problem can be answered without even considering the pronoun case. The OP gave us two sentences, so obviously one is correct and the other is incorrect, no? Because of this, any error in either of the answers (whether it be subject-verb agreement or proper use of the pronoun case) would render it incorrect.</p>
<p>“The letter was intended for Betsey and him, but the actual recepients of the bad news was Peter and me.”</p>
<p>In this sentence (the second option), the verb “was” does not agree with the subject “recipients.” Thus, this choice cannot be the correct answer. </p>
<p>Granted, there are three answer choices missing from this question that, if present, could render this method useless. But since the OP only gave us two (presenting us with a “one-is-right-one-is-wrong” situation), any error at all would immediately invalidate the choice that contained it and validate the other.</p>
<p>^ The OP indicated that the singular verb was a typo.</p>
<p>In my opinion, silverturtle took the long way around answering this. Yes, while what he (she?) said is exactly correct, there are easier ways of addressing this. For me, placing the subject (in this case, “I” or “me”) at the beginning of the sentence rather than at the end usually solves the problem. In this case: “I was the actual recipient of the bad news.” NOT: “Me was the actual recipient of the bad news.” Therefore, “I” is would be correct. Restating in the most direct way almost always works for me.</p>
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<p>Someone ought to show OP the edit button :P</p>