Why have people started using reflexive pronouns so much?

[Flippetydip]

I seem to hear a lot recently of "what can I get for yourself?" or "could you send it to myself with a, b and c copied in".

You get something for yourself, I get something for you. I send something to myself, I send something to you.

Is this now considered acceptable English?

Gotten is the past tense of the verb to get. The British stopped using it around Victorian times but the Americans didnt.

Irish/Scottish people: using a turn of phrase; a colloquialism.

Anyone else: trying to sound posh.

See also, 'Haitch'.

"I seen" instead of "I saw" is very common where I'm from and it makes.my teeth itch.

"I seen the new James Bond film last night."

Awful.

Another one for me is "thanking you" instead of "thank you." Saw it on a printed sign in a waiting room and it was just so wrong - it was there for years too.

"Please close the door behind you. Thanking you."

There's nothing wrong with reflexive pronouns in themselves.

We should just ask ourselves if they are needed in a phrase or are they just making us sound arsey.

Most of the examples pp's are giving sound wrong to me but I'm Irish so use myself all the time so I've been trying to figure out how we use it.

There is the obviously incorrect but pleasantly colloquial, "is it yourself that's in it?" when you meet someone unexpectedly.

I would say "you can collect that from myself or John" but I would never say "you can collect that from John or myself" or "you can collect that from myself "

This is going to keep me awake tonight trying to work out the logic 😁

I love that all the examples are using ‘David and I’, ‘me and David’ etc...

David Beckham has become THE standard for English grammar guidelines

panda yes you absolutely do have to correct him, for his own good as well as everyone else's.

I get sent a good few bits and pieces to correct and I sent one back today with the very passive aggressive comment "just one incorrect reflexive pronoun which really is my pedantic issue rather than a major problem" thinking "I know who wrote it and you are JUST the sort of person to do this - do it again and I WILL take action lady".

@theymade do you speak any Irish? I wonder if it’s a link to the Irish language that we’ve forgotten during the time the language was suppressed. I’ve only just discovered that ‘yes’ doesn’t really exist in Irish, which explain the exchanges ‘will you have a drink?’ ‘I will’ and ‘did you see John in town?’ ‘I did’.

See, I think it’s not a new thing but is more commonly used now.
So, if my children do it I correct them. I think they’ve gotten fed up with it though?
Anyways, I also hate ‘folk’. All of a sudden people have turned into folk.
A lot of those folk presumably can’t form ‘th’ at the beginning of a word since it’s fs all all day long.
I shout at my television & radio a lot ...

I also hate folk. It was happening in the US when I lived there a few years ago, and I thought we’d got away with it here. Then it arrived.

LoveInTokyo
"Crazy, I once proofread a witness statement for a partner in a law firm who had misused a particular punctuation mark all the way through. (I think it was a semi-colon.) I corrected it and he made me change them all back again, saying, "I prefer it like that.""

I would have sacked that solicitor if he'd been mine. I don't take kindly to people in professional roles where attention to detail is everything playing fast and loose with SPaG, it gives me a very low opinion of their own attention to detail.

@oddquestion100 - where are you from? Are those examples in English or translated from another language? I like the "prancing about" idea. It is possible to have some hands-off finesse in English without it sounding grating: I do like your examples.

@pingu: I think the difference is that the examples you use which are "hypercorrect" are all with the verb "to be" which does not take an object (you can see this very clearly in Latin". so "it is I" is a very difference sentence from "give it to me" - for instance you say "here I am" or "I am the manager" so it's like moving things to either side of an equals sign to say "the manager is I" - less colloquial but still correct, and completely different from a subject verb object construction like "I hit you" vs "he hit me"

Most verbs are transitive or intransitive and take objects or datives or equivalents, but the verb to be is a unique exception

Even the BBC use reflexive pronouns wrongly. No wonder people assume it must be ok.
I'm a partner in a law firm and I am constantly correcting reflexive pronoun errors made by very intelligent junior lawyers. Sigh.

My ex can't grasp the difference between 'whereabouts' and 'where'.

"Whereabouts is the bathroom?" Stupid fucker.

"Cabin Pressure", John Finnemore as Arthur Shappey has exacerbated this in recent years, I myself believe. But I myself am convinced he was extracting the urine from themselves.

There was proof positive of this on the radio last night @OuaisMaisBon:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrzqw

It was a grammarian's playground.

Thank you, nauticant, I shall enjoy listening to that whilst I do boring stuff round the house!

Then there's the oleaginous salesman's pitch to 'your good selves'. Ugh.

This is really annoying! I received an email yesterday stating “I have attempted to contact yourself”

Er pardon??

It's an attempt to sound intelligent.

Not a good one.

Yes it's annoying as sin. I also get irrationally irritated by people who use 'them' when they mean 'those' and the use of ignorant to mean ignore.

I heard a colleague today say "ask for myself (...name...) when you ring back later"

ME, ask for ME... what is wrong with using ME?

thick as mince.
Love that expression.so apt

I'm haven't heard this! But like others, cannot stand poor use of English language eg the constantly inappropriate and limited vocabulary use of 'like' making it difficult to understand what on earth they mean and that tiresome question intonation answer!! So bad.

One of my managers does this all the time and it's on official documentation! Drives me crackers.
I think they think it sounds impressive and management-like but he sounds like a twat (he is actually a lovely person, but a piss-poor manager)

I've not trawled this thread so apologies if it's been said. I myself detest the use of 'get', as in Can I get a coffee. In a little tearoom in the sticks somewhere someone said this to the little old dear behind the counter and was told No, you can't, I'll get it for you.
When did we start to 'fill out' a form? We fill in forms, we put information into the boxes.
Sorry about the I myself, couldn't resist it!