Column: Talking about yourself

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I was recently tasked with giving an impromptu lesson on pronouns, and I thought that you, my dear readers, should enjoy the benefits of my grammatical ranting.

The topic of the day: Reflexive pronouns; or, how to talk about yourself.

Myself is a reflexive pronoun. Along with other reflexive pronouns like himself, herself, ourselves and yourself, myself is used to refer back to a previous word in the sentence. In the case of myself, it’s the word I.

Reflexive pronouns are most commonly seen in two cases: when the subject and object are the same person or thing (including objects of prepositional phrases), and as intensive pronouns.

How about some examples for the good of the order, then? Consider this: “John and myself went to the movies.” Incorrect! But why? It’s incorrect because the reflexive pronoun has nothing to refer to. The correct word to use in that sentence would be the subject pronoun I.

We can fix this, though. What’s a movie without a snack, am I right? Let’s say that when John and I go to the movies, we buy ourselves some popcorn. Now John and I are the subjects of the sentence, as we should be, but we’re also the indirect objects – the people receiving the action, which, in this case, is the purchase of delicious popcorn.

To wrap it all up, if you think myself might be appropriate, take a look back at the rest of the sentence. Have you already used the word I? Are you talking about or trying to emphasize something you’re doing? If so, myself could be called for. If not, the word you’re probably looking for is me.


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Column: Talking about yourself

0

I was recently tasked with giving an impromptu lesson on pronouns, and I thought that you, my dear readers, should enjoy the benefits of my grammatical ranting.

The topic of the day: Reflexive pronouns; or, how to talk about yourself.

Myself is a reflexive pronoun. Along with other reflexive pronouns like himself, herself, ourselves and yourself, myself is used to refer back to a previous word in the sentence. In the case of myself, it’s the word I.

Reflexive pronouns are most commonly seen in two cases: when the subject and object are the same person or thing (including objects of prepositional phrases), and as intensive pronouns.

How about some examples for the good of the order, then? Consider this: “John and myself went to the movies.” Incorrect! But why? It’s incorrect because the reflexive pronoun has nothing to refer to. The correct word to use in that sentence would be the subject pronoun I.

We can fix this, though. What’s a movie without a snack, am I right? Let’s say that when John and I go to the movies, we buy ourselves some popcorn. Now John and I are the subjects of the sentence, as we should be, but we’re also the indirect objects – the people receiving the action, which, in this case, is the purchase of delicious popcorn.

To wrap it all up, if you think myself might be appropriate, take a look back at the rest of the sentence. Have you already used the word I? Are you talking about or trying to emphasize something you’re doing? If so, myself could be called for. If not, the word you’re probably looking for is me.


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