To want to scream at the misuse of reflexives?

[Whatisthisfuckery]

ARGH!

Where did it come from? Why do people do it? I’m pretty sure it’s a recent thing where people are writing such abominations as ‘please contact myself on...’ or ‘I’d just like to invite x and yourself to...’ No, if you call me ‘yourself’ I’m not coming.

Do people think it makes them’ sound formal or something?

My DS’s form tutor has done it every time she’s emailed me, then today on a video catch up she did it in speech. I’m not sure my face didn’t give me away. I’m sure I visibly cringed, I might have even put my head in my hands. There is no polite or acceptable way to tell your child’s teacher that her incorrect use of language makes you want to repeatedly bang your head against the wall in frustration.

It’s entirely ridiculous and irrational, but AIBU to want to curl up in a ball on the ground and rock backwards and forwards when somebody uses a reflexive where they shouldn’t?

OMG YES! So annoying. I remember hearing an interview with Victoria Beckham and she was all about "David and myself..."

I think it's because some most people don't know when to use "so-and-so and I" and "so-and-so and me".

"So-and-so and I" replaces "we" in the sentence whereas "so-and-so and me" replaces "us".

(Or it could be the other way round 😂 but I'm pretty sure it's this way!)

So VB could have said "Elton invited David and me..." as in "Elton invited us" then later in the convo maybe it would need to be "David and I enjoyed Paris" as in "we enjoyed Paris.."

But she opted for David and myself throughout due to the "and me/we" or "and I/us" to save pedants like me being outraged at her mistakes 😱😂

Instead I became MORE OUTRAGED by how stupid and banal "...and myself" sounds, I mean, she's supposed to be POSH!

[one has worked oneself up into quite a pedantic tizzy, and myself now needs a lie down by myself. Or a lay down? Whatever, myself is now very cross.]

@dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby

Quote PigsDOfly: Every lunchtime the secretary of one of the middle management men would ring down and tell us, 'If you get any calls for Mr Jones or I, we'll be out to lunch for the next hour'.

..because it is after 'for' in your example 'me' is correct but strictly speaking it would be correct for her to say, 'Mr Jones and I are going out for lunch' ....it sounds a bit stilted though so people would tend to say 'Mr Jones and me'

dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby

I don't understand the point you're making, sorry.

Had she said, 'Mr Jones and I are going out for lunch' then of course, that would have been correct, and yes, I suppose many people would say 'Mr Jones and me are going out to lunch', which wouldn't be correct, although in common usage.

But she didn't say that, she said, as I quoted: 'If you get any calls for Mr Jones or I', which is not correct; no one would say 'If you get any calls for I'.

I think rather than a case of sneering at peoples’ poor grammar from a position of privilege, which I don’t hold BTW, it’s actually the case that we see threads bemoaning poor grammar on forums like this because it’s so frowned upon to correct it IRL.

I think that it’s actually just as likely that we see threads bemoaning poor grammar on forums like this so that posters can sneer at poor grammar from a position of privilege behind an anonymous nickname.

Also, how many posters doing the bemoaning are without fail punctilious about pronouns? Do you always avoid saying "it's me"?

@pigsDOfly Yes I am not disagreeing with you at all. Your example was correct. I am just pointing out how confusing this can be for people.

My ex did this all the time, and he did it because he thought it made him sound "posh".

An estate agent said to me yesterday, "I'll make a note for myself to call yourself in a month's time". He also said "Bless your heart" when I told him I was shielding so couldn't view properties. What a nob.

It wouldn’t bother me as a much as those who say “We was going”, “I were singing” “can I lend some sugar” or “can you borrow me your ruler”. Why? Just why?

@MasterBeth, you made me think for the first time in months, many thanks.

I raise you......I'm in a bubble with X
Now there may indeed, be some kind of fun game which involves giant bubbles, I don't know?

Varient.......although not a new word...was it in common parlance? Verily, I think not
Or Covidiot, a creative stab at connecting two words to create a hybrid, a new found insult.

@User26272829

It wouldn’t bother me as a much as those who say “We was going”, “I were singing” “can I lend some sugar” or “can you borrow me your ruler”. Why? Just why?

Because they are not as good as you, of course.

I fucking hate this faux incomprehension. Just be honest and own the fact that you enjoy a bloody good sneer at people who use language in a way you were taught was incorrect, and leave the pretended confusion aside.

@unmarkedbythat Obviously! Nobody is as good as me! Or maybe, it gets on my nerves and I’m being honest about it.

I always misuse reflexives, knowing it's wrong grammatically. It just sounds more polite, often, than 'you' and there should be a passive construction for writing about something - but I can't always find it.

If you are writing to someone even slightly formally , and it's all, ' the email I sent to you...' and lots of other yous, it can sound as if you are slightly accusing them of not having done something. A few ' yourselfs', as in, ' after I'd spoken to yourself about this...' etc., sort of softens and emmoliates. It should be possible to write something like: ' After our meeting, it was agreed....' but you can't always construct it that way.
In French they have a 'vous' and a :tu' for formal and informal.. Perhaps it's a shame we can't have that.
I remember doing an exchange to Bordeaux as a fourteen-year-old, and my French pal was aghast when I impolitely and forgetfully called a proprietoress (?🤨 spelling?) 'tu' in a shop.

A few ' yourselfs'...sort of softens and emmoliates.

I say this gently but it really really doesn't...

dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby Ah, I see.

Yes, it can be confusing but often, as in my example, it just requires a bit of thought to understand the sense of it.

Ah but that is interesting as a point, Diverseopinions and Bright. Are the language users drifting towards "yourself" as a replacement for a formal "you", which is lacking in the English language (or always present, depending on how you approach it)?

It drives me mad. Some of the worst culprits are on police tv programes are officers saying: "I must ask you, sir, to accompany myself to the police station." Cue throw brick at TV. Not quite but tempted. Grrr

Can we add people who don’t know the difference between blond and blonde or brunet and brunette?

Funny you should mention the police, Crankley, I was just about to say I place inappropriate myself/yourself usage in the same category as "Emergency Service Over-Formalisation". It's the phenomenon you see when an slightly star-struck police / fire /ambulance crew member is thrust into the spotlight and asked to give an interview to the local news. They stop taking normally and become over-blown and formal. "I was proceeding in an Easterly direction along the highway when I observed that the vehicle had made contact with an item of street furniture", i.e. "I was walking down the road when I saw that the car had hit the lampost". I think it's an unconscious effort to appear intelligent and worthy of respect. Which is a shame, because it sort of has the opposite effect...

I find it incredibly irritating too, but 'visibly flinching' at another adult's grammar is very rude,and correcting it is almost always done out of a sense of superiority, not a desire to help.

Yourself are being V V V Urself.

I think the annoying thing about it is that it’s used by people who are trying to sound better than everyone else.

I wonder if there are people out there who never, ever read.

YANBU about teachers who inflict bad grammar and significant misspellings on their captive audiences.

I'm thinking of one in particular who insisted on spelling 'their' t h i e r.

FGSWhatNow

You're absolutely right, they think it makes them sound official. Something also used a lot on here is starting a sentence with a eg: 'Myself and DH.' Some then go on to completely strangle the grammar with something like '......had went to the doctors.'

Please note in my first post I said 'cue' and not 'que' which has become popular on here which is also irritating. However the worst for me is could/would/should OF instead of HAVE.

Yanbu

I think a former poster is correct. People are using yourself because "you" sounds too blunt sometimes. Most other languages have a more formal "you" or use the third person to address someone respectfully. So "how is grandma today?", rather than "how are you today?". To people who have English as their second language, it may sound disrespectful and blunt to say "Did you do this?", though of course it is correct. I don't think it's not so much people trying to be posh at all, it's people trying to be respectful and less blunt.