Well, Kristen jumped in there first with one of her pet peeves:

"referring TO yourself as "myself". double ARGH!!!

W.O.W. to the rescue!

Kristen is not really clear here, and some of you might be scratching your heads as to what she means. But she's right, there's a real misunderstanding of the use of "myself" and other reflexive pronouns. Observe:

"For more information, see Jim or myself after the meeting."

"We decided that the points of contact would be Sarah and myself."

"Tim, this morning Jeff announced that the emails will be handled by Barb and yourself."

Right, Kristen, double ARGH!

Before I explain the nuts and bolts here, let me demonstrate why the above uses grate on the ears. What if Jim were not at the meeting? Would I look around and then say, "Okay never mind, just see myself after the meeting"? Of course not...I'd say "See ME after the meeting." Or how about if Sarah backs out and I say, "We decided that the point of contact would be myself"? Well, I might say that, but I'd be wrong. And if Barb were not available, would the emails be handled by yourself? NO, they would be handled by you.

Not every language has reflexive pronouns, but if you're a speaker or writer of English, they're your birthright and you must learn to respect their unique function. A reflexive pronoun (myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves, oneself) can only be used when the action of the sentence is reflected back on the subject...in other words, when the subject and the object of the sentence are the same entity. You can dress yourself; I cannot dress yourself. I can wash myself; you cannot wash myself. Only I can drive myself; only you can drive yourself.

So, dear readers, there is no way you can see myself after the meeting, whether Jim is there or not. (And he should be--that guy is always missing meetings.) You can see me...you can see Jim...but only *I* can see myself.

Similarly, we decide that I will be the point of contact, or that the point of contact will be me. Not myself. Just plain ol' me. And the emails will be handled by you and Barb, or perhaps by Barb and you, but please note that Jeff can't insist the emails be handled by yourself. The emails can perhaps handle themselves, but then that's done on an OS that hasn't been invented yet. We're eagerly awaiting that one, yes Lyric?

This, by the way, is an error that happens most often when the reflexive pronoun is used with another person's name. When in doubt, remove the other person's name and see how it sounds with just the "myself."

And I will go into this further on another W.O.W., but please don't exchange one problem for another by saying, "If you have questions after the meeting, please see Jim or I." You'll be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. You will hurt yourself.

There are a couple of other uses for reflexive/intensive pronouns in English, but their uses are fairly intuitive and not often abused so I won't treat them here.

And just as a related freebie for those of you taking notes: there are no such words as hisself, theirself, themself, or ourself. And there's no such word as myselves unless you have been officially diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder by a board-certified psychiatrist. Then you may help yourselves. All of them.

Labels: Language