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Yes, willravel, you are right and it drives me crazy too! I get profoundly aggravated when I hear people use "I" when "me" would be correct. My theory is that they (or their parents) were corrected for misusing "me" and decided that the correct thing to do is use "I" all the time.
As in, "Mom's going to the mall with my friend and I." Aaargh!
I have to say that almost all of the things mentioned in this thread annoy me beyond description. I'm no grammatical expert but both my mother and grandmother were English teachers, so I doubtless picked it up by exposure as a child. The ones that bother me most are the misplaced apostrophe and lose and loose. The worst thing is when someone goes to the trouble and expense of printing mistakes of this sort on their menu or sign - a guarantee that they'll never have me as a customer. Most of the time when I hear people butchering the language I never correct them because I'm afraid of what might happen if I open my mouth. I might just start screaming like a banshee with frustration and that just wouldn't be polite.
I also feel the need to point out that there's a difference between creative use of the language and sheer ignorance or laziness. Of course we should be able to invent a word and use it. Think of Finnegan's Wake, for example. We should also expect to be misunderstood, and to have to explain what we are saying to a lot of people. Hopefully someone will get it and think we're clever. Unfortunately the overall literacy level seems to be sinking, and it seems that a lot of people just really don't care whether they can use the language properly or not. I'd say that precludes any possibility of creating a literary masterpiece, much less making ones self understood in daily conversation.
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