Could you please tell me if someone says 'I don't like cheese' and you give a shortened reply, is it 'Me either' or 'Me neither'. It seems to me that the reply, which is clearly not a sentence, is understood as 'I don't like cheese either', in which case using 'neither' would make a double negative. Is this correct or is it getting totally confused? Thank you, Maggie.
As I suspect you know, the answer is, of course, 'me neither'. However, the best I can offer is that this is a colloquialism. There is no real sense to it. Even the 'me' is highly questionable.
I disagree with the above. I'm pretty sure the answer is "me either." As you said, the whole sentence is "I don't like it either." You would not say, "I don't like it neither." Neither is used when there is more than one thing that you don't like (double exclusion) and is almost always accompanied by the word "nor." For example, "I like neither cheese nor ice cream."