Myself and yourself instead of me and you

[WanderingNotLost]

This is something that just pisses me off to no end.

People saying myself and yourself instead of me and you.

Example: We need someone do speak on Tuesday, Steve has suggested yourself.

We have previously sold photocopiers to yourself.

No no no no no!!

Why do people do this? Is it just ignorance? I've found sales people are particularly guilty of this heinous crime. It just grates on me, I always want to correct them. AIBU?

See also: the misplaced apostrophe.

Grates my carrot.

You may be happier in Pedants' Corner OP.

OP you are so right. But it was ever thus, my husband was reading an autobiography from before the war and even then people were using I/me/myself in the wrong places!

I still dislike it but have learnt to (kind of) accept it. My latest hate is "to gift" (no, you GIVE something, why do so many nouns have to be changed into verbs). And most of all: saying "excited for" instead of "excited about". You are excited for a person, you are excited about doing something, or a stretch, excited to be doing it. But not "for".

Where I come from saying 'my sister and I went into town' would be considered a 'posh' way of speaking, regardless of your education. It would be 'myself and my sister'

If people think "my sister and I" is too posh, they'd be better off saying "me and my sister".

As for sales teams, you could be right. I worked in the legal team of a FTSE 100 company a few years ago and had to check all customer service letters and call centre scripts for legal compliance. I also changed every misplaced "yourself" to "you" and there were many.

Myself has noticed that every contestant on The Apprentice does this. (Scott I'd still marry yourself if you're reading, my love.)

It's one of the biggest errors in letters that I see - especially in the sign off when the letter is one individual to another.

'I hope that this resolves matters. However, if you have any questions at all, please contact myself on 0300544126'.

WTAF. It's 'me'. Contact ME. Winds me up to a pitch because it just reads as such nonsense.

It's quite simply the nuance of spoken language. Written language (txtspk) is now becoming the 'norm' of communication. You will soon spontaneously combust.

Gaspode that drives me mad as well! The word 'me' seems to be viewed as very uncouth by some people.

I hear it a lot in shops, I do think staff are told to day it in order to make them sounds more intelligent or authoritative, but unfortunately it has the opposite result it making them appear more dimwitted than they probably are.

I had a young woman in Specsavers endlessly saying that this frame or that frame would be more 'idealistic'. Ideal!!!!! How can an inanimate object be idealistic! Oooh, it gave me the rage.

Say it! Not day it.

I have to try so hard not to correct people who make this mistake that I sometimes miss the point of what they are saying.

Sounds??? FFS, I'm off.

"If people think "my sister and I" is too posh, they'd be better off saying "me and my sister". [quote]

No, not in Ireland. As a pp said, it's a direct translation of the Irish sentence.

I agree when writing a formal letter, correct English comes into play. But people need to understand that when speaking, or writing casually on a forum like this one, people will use their own dialect. It is very ignorant to be critical of that - far more ignorant than using turns of phrase that reflect your culture but might not be perfect, grammatically.

I think the issue is that it has become a 'thing' amongst people who do not have a history of their dialect using these words in this way. So I don't think you can compare someone Irish with someone from an area that has never had this as part of their dialect.

I think though, certainly in my experience, this particular irritation is with people who have been brought up using 'me' and 'you' but who adopt 'myself' and 'yourself' and use them as direct replacements. It seems to mostly happen at work, or in formal environments, as the words are viewed, erroneously, as a more educated or correct option.

The word 'me' seems to be viewed as very uncouth by some people.

Yes, I think that's it. I wonder how far it goes.

'Do you love myself?'

'I, John Smith, take yourself, Mary Brown, to be my wedded wife...'

No, not in Ireland. As a pp said, it's a direct translation of the Irish sentence.

Yes I know it's acceptable use in Ireland (and Liverpool). But not in the UK generally. And I was talking about written language where accent doesn't come into it. Most people have at least two registers for language - the informal possibly local, slang, and more formal language - and understand when to use each register. People in English call centres are not using it because it's part of Irish culture. They use it because they think it makes them sound more educated, when actually it does the opposite.

Someone who knows a lot about language explained the origins of this to me once. I will attempt to explain, but I do not know a lot about language so do bear with me; it's something people do so as not to be too direct. If you say "you" that is too forceful in some contexts so people say "yourself". It's actually meant well I think so YABU IMHO to find it annoying.

OP are you me? It does my head in!! People think they sound oh so intelligent when they use myself/yourself instead of me/you, and they just sound stupid.
An over promoted manager at my work is particularly guilty of it, and one of those days I swear I'm going to print emails from her, correct it all in red pen and hand deliver it to her, along with a book about the rules of grammar

Yes, I agree that when you're writing in English you should try to be grammatically correct. Also, I can imagine it's annoying when someone is putting it on in a work situation because they think it sounds smarter.

But some people criticise various e

Sorry, posted too soon.

some people criticise various expressions like that on threads, and that annoys me as the poster is often just using a normal turn of phrase from their area.

As I said, a thread I started once was completely misjudged by some posters who harked on the fact that I'd opened it with 'myself and my sister' and just assumed I was trying to be posh.

This is one of my bugbears! In my experience there are two groups: people who do it because they think it makes them sound 'posher', and people who do it without thinking. The latter can be well educated or not, it's just become a habit like corpspeak becomes a habit.

YA definately NBU, I can't stand it, other than local dialects, it makes me think that people are poorly educated but trying to sound posher and more formal, which they don't need to do because it's fine to be however you are (it's a relatively new thing I think) It is a bit like people who use pacific instead of specific, it makes me wince inwardly when I hear them. My DH said 'myself' in a way that wasn't gramatically correct and I had to try really hard not to say anything. Then my dd said 'could of' the other day......arghhhh why aren't my gramatically correct ways rubbing off on my family

Oh and it's definitely NOT considered posh where I come from, but as has been said, it clearly depends on where you live.

I've sent an email this morning that included the word yourself and the phrase COP

Please feel free to gouge out my eyeballs alltouchedout

Quite Daisy.

It's always very satisfying to see Muphry's Law come into play on threads like this though.

I think it depends on context though...I can see at work where correspondance ought to be as accurate as poss it is an issue, but equally some smart arse correcting my turn of phrase or grammar when i'm chatting on social media or whatever royally fucks me off...I'm an adult, an educated adult and if my grammar or spelling slip because i'm relaxed and enjoying banter or having a rant, (or typing and multitasking so I don't notice) then whatever!! Get over it and dont condescend!

But i do still love hearing other peoples peeves. Very amusing.