This is an example where prescriptive grammar fails us (in practice I mean). Generations of people have had drummed into them that they must say "John and I went" not "Me and John went", because of some supposed rule imported from Latin. (See Emonds, J. "Grammatically deviant prestige dialect constructions." A Festschift for Sol Saporta. Ed. M. Brame, H. Contreras and F. Newmeyer. Seattle: Noit Amrofer, 1985, for why "John and I went" cannot be part of any naturally learnt variety of English).

But "Sarah and we/us" is not frequent enough that phrases like it often come up in pedagogy, so we are left with two unpalatable alternatives: "Sarah and us" must be wrong because "Sarah and me" is wrong; but "Sarah and we" doesn't sound right either, and we don't know what to say.

Emonds discusses a number of more complicated cases where people are often unsure about the application of the rule, but I don't remember whether they include this one.

[Edited to correct title of paper and provide proper citation, 3 December]

This is an example where prescriptive grammar fails us (in practice I mean). Generations of people have had drummed into them that they must say “John and I went” not “Me and John went”, because of some supposed rule imported from Latin. (See¹ Emonds, J. “Grammatically deviant prestige dialect constructions.”A Festschift for Sol Saporta. Ed. M. Brame, H. Contreras and F. Newmeyer. Seattle: Noit Amrofer, 1985, for why “John and I went” cannot be part of any naturally learnt variety of English).

But “Sarah and we/us” is not frequent enough that phrases like it often come up in pedagogy, so we are left with two unpalatable alternatives: “Sarah and us” must be wrong because “Sarah and me” is wrong; but “Sarah and we” doesn’t sound right either, and we don’t know what to say.

Emonds discusses a number of more complicated cases where people are often unsure about the application of the rule, but I don't remember whether they include this one.

[¹ Edited to correct title of paper and provide proper citation, 3 December 2010. Text available at fine.me.uk, February 2011.]

This is an example where prescriptive grammar fails us (in practice I mean). Generations of people have had drummed into them that they must say "John and I went" not "Me and John went", because of some supposed rule imported from Latin. (See Emonds' 1985 paper "A grammatically deviant prestige construction" for why "John and I went" cannot be part of any naturally learnt variety of English).

But "Sarah and we/us" is not frequent enough that phrases like it often come up in pedagogy, so we are left with two unpalatable alternatives: "Sarah and us" must be wrong because "Sarah and me" is wrong; but "Sarah and we" doesn't sound right either, and we don't know what to say.

Emonds discusses a number of more complicated cases where people are often unsure about the application of the rule, but I don't remember whether they include this one.

This is an example where prescriptive grammar fails us (in practice I mean). Generations of people have had drummed into them that they must say "John and I went" not "Me and John went", because of some supposed rule imported from Latin. (See Emonds, J. "Grammatically deviant prestige dialect constructions." A Festschift for Sol Saporta. Ed. M. Brame, H. Contreras and F. Newmeyer. Seattle: Noit Amrofer, 1985, for why "John and I went" cannot be part of any naturally learnt variety of English).

But "Sarah and we/us" is not frequent enough that phrases like it often come up in pedagogy, so we are left with two unpalatable alternatives: "Sarah and us" must be wrong because "Sarah and me" is wrong; but "Sarah and we" doesn't sound right either, and we don't know what to say.

Emonds discusses a number of more complicated cases where people are often unsure about the application of the rule, but I don't remember whether they include this one.

[Edited to correct title of paper and provide proper citation, 3 December]