Why me

Pamela81... can someone tell me why I use "me" and not "I" in ...
"why me?"

I don't think anyone can tell you why.

Pamela81"why me?" and not "Why I?"

When some shouts out this expression, an unexpected event or something he didn't not wish for has happened in his life. So if you say "Why me!", you express perhaps a mixed feeling of "why didn't this happen to somebody else, but me"( Me- as in the objective case, as a recipient of the misfortune and punishment ).

Hi CJ!

Thanks for the reply.

You mean that there´s no grammatical rule behind it?

But if I say: "that´s me who can solve the situation" isn´t any rule as well for the choice of me instead of I?

Thanks for your feedback

Pamela

I think it's "why me" because the word "me" (although it is a noun) indicates in this context an object.

Let's take a look at this example:

"He chose me to put on his show. Why me?" In other words, why am I the one he decided to choose?

You say "why me" because you show an unpleasant act he did towards you.

The question "why me" has a complaint tone, and

Pamela81You mean that there´s no grammatical rule behind it?

Well, I suppose I could say that the grammatical rule is to use the object pronoun after "why". That IS the rule.

"why me?" is re-phrase of a truncated sentence which usually involves an action verb: why pick me?; why did you do that to me?; why did you give me so much money?; ... I suppose "why I" could be used to truncate a non-action verb phrase, but off-hand I can't think of one that would not be silly: You are silly. - Why I (why am I silly)?.