English to French translation

Reflexive pronouns

March 24, 2004

Is it me or are reflexive pronouns used in an increasingly incorrect manner? I'll admit that this is one abuse of grammar that makes me want to reach for a chainsaw annoys me slightly.

Consider these examples:

"My mother, my father and myself were in the hotel when Barry died."
"If you would like a loan to get Charlie out of jail, please contact myself."

Here, myself should be replaced by I (subject pronoun) in the first example, and me (object pronoun) in the second.

Myself, yourself, him/herself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves: all of these reflective pronouns have two functions:

referring back to an antecedent in the same sentence (e.g. Paul hates himself).

intensifying (Janine killed Barry herself). This emphasises the fact that Janine and no-one else killed Barry.

If one day you find yourself in a situation where you're not sure whether you should use a reflexive pronoun, remember this: they always, always refer back to an antecedent in the same sentence, and that they can never be subjects.

So why do people abuse reflexive pronouns in this way?
The only thing that I can think of is that people believe, and they're mistaken, that reflexive pronouns sound more formal, more eloquent than object pronouns. They think that by using them, they can appear more "clever", more "educated". Maybe to some people, saying "please contact myself" sounds more sophisticated than "please contact me". Using a reflexive pronoun could also be seen as more polite than an object pronoun, as the following example may suggest: "I talked to you and your wife" versus "I talked to yourself and your wife".

I must admit this is my number one pet hate. Every day I pray it's not going to become more and more popular and end up part of everyday language.

Comments

Hmm. I take your point, and I would have agreed with you 100% till I found this quotation in the OED, which seems to be presented neutrally as just one usage of 'yourself' amongst many: "What a strong friendship used to exist between Uncle Brian, yourself, and Anne Valery."

This just somehow sounds fine to me, even though in the prescriptivist sense it must be wrong.

The OED also says that 'yourself' can be used "as predicate, or after as or than. Now esp. in Anglo-Irish", which vaguely brings to mind an episode of Father Ted where someone or other isn't quite lucid/sober and, thinking they've just bumped into Jesus, greets him with "Ah, it's yourself. Hello."

aargh.

(oh, the temptation to delete your comment Anthony, in order for my little grammatical world to remain simple and umblemished)

Really? The examples you provide still sound wrong to me. So I detest this use of reflexive pronouns not because they're ungrammatical, but because I've taken an irrational and ill-founded dislike to them? So I can no longer self-righteously point the finger at them? All my English grammar teachers were wrong, you say?

*shaking my head sadly*

Life is hard indeed.

"Mommy, me and Sarah want to go and play at Jenny's house."
"Don't say 'me', dear, it's 'Sarah and I.'"

After being corrected this way countless times, most children absorb the lesson that "you don't say 'me' when you name another person and yourself." What they (and often the adults who correct them) fail to realize is that "I" is correct for subjects and "me" for objects.

Thus you will have otherwise well-spoken adults saying things like "They gave the present to my wife and I" even though they would never think of saying, "They gave the present to I."

Many other people do have a vague idea that "I" is wrong here, but the stricture against saying "me" was too ingrained in them from childhood, so they compromise by using "myself."

And there you have the explanation of this mistaken use of myself.

> The examples you provide still sound wrong to me.

Well, you'd probably only ever expect to find the second example in speech.

But the first ("as direct or indirect object, or after a preposition (or 'like' adj. and adv") barely jars on me at all. In fact, I wouldn't have given it a second glance if I'd seen it anywhere other than the OED.

> So I detest this use of reflexive pronouns not because they're
> ungrammatical, but because I've taken an irrational and ill-
> founded dislike to them? So I can no longer self-righteously
> point the finger at them?

Point away, point away. It's great fun. I do it all the time ;-)

I share your annoyance over these examples - grammatically they offend because in British English (but not apparently in Irish English) reflexives are coreferential. Where I disagree - it's time for some real pedantry - is your assertion that they refer back to an antecedent: sorry but there are perfectly good refering forward examples like

Myself, I can't bare to see "I" as the object of a proposition.

It's kataphora, innit?

I think we have to sometimes admit that even inclusion in the OED is just not a guarantee of grammaticality.

In re the me/I confusion, most amusing are the pseudo-hypercorrections. I think it was Cliff Richard how had a single with the title "Between you and I".

I've never understood why people say "I myself never/always/ blah blah", once you say "I" the "myself" is just redundant, just seems like saying "me, me, me".

Robert, I really can see the point of saying "I myself": you insist on the fact that this is your opinion and noone else's and I actually admire how effective the reflexive pronoun is to carry that meaning. In French, you would have to use a whole proposition: "Cela n'engage que moi, mais je pense que..." or "En ce qui me concerne, je..."

"...just seems like saying "me, me, me"."

Jim, I know quite a few people who certainly mean this, even if they don't actually say it!

Céline, I've only just found the thread about incorrect use of the reflexive pronoun, and have to say that I agree with every syllable you wrote. It's nice to know I'm not the only one that feels that way about it! It grates on me intensely to hear people say "myself" when a simple "me" is all that's required! I usually listen to the Today programme on Radio 4 while I'm getting dressed on a morning, and I have been known to swear vehemently at the radio when an otherwise well-spoken and apparently well-educated person (usually a politician! makes this fundamental error. I know language is dynamic, and constantly evolving, but this is one direction I'd rather it didn't take!

In my attempts to rid the world of this accursed habit, I have been known to conspicuously correct and annotate memos on the office noticeboard that include phrases like "Please complete the form and return it to myself", to reply to emails with a lesson in basic English grammar, and to interrupt people while they're talking to point out the errors of their ways. Admittedly, I only do these last two to people that know what I'm like - after all, I wouldn't want to get a reputation as a humourless pedant - but do you know what the most worrying thing is?

They don't care. They just don't care...

I want to know a sentence with me as the object of the proposition

Alas, mahib points out my stupidity. I meant of course to talk about the objects of prepositions not propositions.

Me(self)thinks the problem is not really the fact that people misuse words. Don't we all ? And then, there is not much we can do about it.
The problem is that some of the abuse feels as painful as an agression. So what we need is to transform it - in our mind - so it sounds a little less painful, even enjoyable. What if you read "Please contact my Self" instead, wouldn't you die to call the pompous ass ? (Just to call him or her that).
"Hey, how's your Self, today, is he home, can I speak to him?"
Trying to contact my self,
J.

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