Me and mi are two commonly confused words that are pronounced in the same way but are spelled differently and have different meanings, which makes them homophones. We will examine the different meanings of the homophonic words me and mi, the word origin of the terms, and some examples of their English usage in sentences.
Me is an object pronoun and is used as an object of a sentence. The object of a sentence is the person or thing that the action is happening to. Other object pronouns are you, him, her, us, them. In a sentence, the object usually comes after the verb in the sentence, or in the predicate of the sentence. Me is a first, person, singular personal pronoun. The word me is derived from the Old English word, mē
Mi is the third note in the solfège system for a musical scale. The solfège system assigns a nonsense syllable to each note of an octave: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, and the repeated do. Solfège is useful when teaching music theory or learning a melody without the necessity to learn lyrics. The Italian monk, Guido of Arezzo, invented the system in the eleventh century. The word mi is only used to identify a musical note.
Examples
“I think it’ll be good for me and really help me develop more,” Ruffner said. (The Martinsburg Journal)
Some of my earliest musical memories involve music that filled me with a sense of wonder, gave me joy or soothed me in some fashion. (The Buffalo News)
That made me feel like a doctor — some people already call me Dr. Benham, deference that I appreciate. (The Bakersfield Californian)
The quartet, which was named after a system of naming the notes of the scale (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, da), has worked hard to bring their rich and entertaining vocal act to the masses. (The Post Bulletin)
You do leave the theatre humming those key tunes: Do-Re-Mi, My Favorite Things. (The Vancouver Sun)
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