One of the most common errors in spoken English is the incorrect use of the word “myself.” It’s often that I hear someone say something along the lines of:
“They asked my husband and myself to come to dinner.”
This error typically occurs because people don’t know whether they should use “me” or “I” in a statement. To avoid sounding ignorant, they often substitute the word “myself,” hoping that it is at least close to correct. But they couldn’t be more wrong. Myself is a reflexive pronoun, and a reflexive pronoun is always preceded by the noun to which it refers (its antecedent). “Myself” should only be used when “I” is the subject of a sentence. For example, you would say:
“I am buying myself a Cabrio.”
So, we can see why the first example is incorrect. And it’s really not that hard to fix. The confusion arises because we’re dealing with a compound object (“my husband and I/me/myself”), and that makes it a bit more difficult to determine the pronoun we want to use. But there’s an incredibly easy trick to figure out which one we should use. Simply remove “my husband” from the sentence. It then becomes quite clear that the pronoun we’re looking for is “me.”
I think another reason that “myself” has been subjected to so much misuse is because people think “me” is somehow a lesser pronoun or that people who use it are uneducated. Maybe this is because we’ve all heard people use it incorrectly (“Me and her are going bowling.”) and died a little on the inside. However, “me” has a definite place in English, one that cannot be assumed by another pronoun. And you’ll come off sounding ignorant and pretentious if you replace it with “myself.”
Just one wee tweak here: A person who is an Anglophile is simply someone who adores all things British. He worships the monarchy, uses phrases like "Queen Mum," experiences an ecstatic moment while watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. If religious, he likely as not adheres to the High Anglican liturgy. He drinks his beer warm and his tea bitter, and may even claim to enjoy the boiled wool and kidney pie and meat mush so dear to the British palate. In the worst case, he is often a secondary-school teacher who vacations each summer in Cornwall, shod in white socks and bad sandals. At his best, he is T. S. Eliot. (Make of that what you will.)
ReplyDeleteA lover and student of the English language, on the other hand, is more accurately referred to as a lexicographer, a strict grammarian, and, behind his back, as a fuddy-duddy. This distinction is small but crucial.
Atiaphile
Duly noted, Vorenus. And fixed.
ReplyDeleteI am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
ReplyDeleteAn attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two . . .
Advise the prince, mo doubt, an easy tool. . .
Amost, at times, the Fool.
Peach-Eater
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