Me, Myself and Yourselfs

[CactusMactus]

Can't watch The Traitors anymore because everyone says "myself" when they mean 'me" and yourself/s" when they mean "you". Driving me (myself?) up the bloody wall!

Don’t watch the Apprentice, I suggest.

I think people believe it’s a more polite/formal version of me and you. I see it in emails a lot too.

The violation of reflexive pronouns! It pisses me off every time.

Thank you, this has been bugging me for a while and I was starting to wonder if I am the problem!

I see it all the time.

Drives me mad too. It’s not just on the traitors, it’s everywhere. I think people use yourself/myself to try and sound more intelligent but most of the time their use is incorrect so the opposite is true.

I find it is really common with call centre staff who are trying to make themselves sound more official…also my ex (not the only reason he is my ex btw)

This is thick people.

The myself / yourself on the traitors is driving us all a bit mad here.

Where I live it’s a totally normal conversational feature.
Always has been, I’ve never even thought about it…

I've been shouting at the TV at lot recently as the word combination "and me" seems to have been banned.

Give that to Johnny and I, He told Johnny and I to go away, He gave Johnny and I a cake, He invited Johnny and I to attend.

No, it's me, not I.

Same. I speak Hiberno English and it has different rules. There are still rules though as to when myself is acceptable.

Everyone does it at work to sound more formal and intelligent. Drives me insane....

Glad to not be on my own here!

This one drives me mad as well. The worst thing is, I know that 90% of my colleagues think I’ve used ‘me’ incorrectly when I use it in this context.

@Frostyloz only 90%?

This drives me mad!! People say it to try and sound intelligent and it just does the opposite. The grammar in general on reality shows is appalling.

@OchonAgusOchonOh I was being generous, it’s probably closer to 98%. I even explained it to one pretty sensible colleague once (that you can tell whether me or I is correct by taking the other person out of the sentence) but she just looked at me as if I had 2 heads. I don’t think she believed me.

@Frostyloz - I've also explained it to intelligent, literate friends, including one who is a primary school teacher. They obviously don't believe me as they still get it wrong.

My 3 dc are very clear on the rule so at least a very tiny percentage of the next generation will get it correct.

Isn't it 'yourselves', not yourselfs?

Missing the point as I don't watch Traitors...

It's Semantic's Law. While being pedantic, you are guaranteed to make a mistake.

I'm glad it's not just me!

I have ranted about this so much when watching the Traitors (which I love) that I am now banned from mentioning it by the rest of my family 🤦

Oh God, yes. The trouble is that it's become so normalised - along with never using "me" - that most people think you are the idiot when you use them correctly.

I think she used "yourselfs" because that's what they say: "I'll send this file over to yourself"

Yes. They think they're being correct or posh.

But they're not!

And it's incredibly jarring

YANBU it's really annoying and sounds so clunky.

It is so awful. The misuse of “myself” and “yourself” etc is so jarring. I don’t know whether I feel more irritation or pity when I hear it. I think it is particularly irritating as it seems to be used by people trying to make themselves sound more refined, but their misuse of the words is revealing and has the total opposite effect to the one they are trying so desperately for.