Letter from CEO of Coutts to Mr N Farage

[FoxtrotOscarFoxtrotOscar]

"comments made about yourself"
"yours and the public's concerns"

A few split infinitives as well but I'll be generous and overlook those.

I think the bank has made a grovelly apology now. I can't decide. I guess his politics is his business.

I used to regularly correct letters drafted by staff for my signature where 'yourself'/'myself' was misused. It seems even 20 years on people in banks still make these same grammatical mistakes, thinking they sound more formal.

oops, sorry. Didn't spot this was a post about pedantry. I bet Coutts would be glad to know they're being discussed from the angle of pedantry.

Honestly, if you're trying to be pompous prissy super-polite, the phrase you were looking for is "your good self". Yourself isn't a contraction of that phrase, it's a reflexive pronoun. If you don't know what one of those is, educate yourself. Or shoot yourself, I don't care. Managers at posh banks should know English grammar.

(My inner pedant's usually very calm; pronoun misuse must've reached critical mass!)

With this and the shoddy document it’s looking like being a bad writer is a good job at an elite bank

Split infinitives are now accepted by those that know @FoxtrotOscarFoxtrotOscar

The writer received a £5 million bonus this year.

When I was signing letters to go out I used to read them very carefully because the person who typed them (yes, I'm that old) had a worrying tendency to type what she thought was written in the draft instead of what was written - not to mention her spelling which was - interesting. That's how I caught Parkistarn.

And that reflexive pronoun in the Coutts letter had me screaming inside. Either she didn't read it before signing the letter or she did and didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Still not as bad as the colleague who used to tell callers the phone if they were speaking to her as 'yes, that is myself.'

That ‘yourself’ was sooooo telling. I can hear the sound of accounts closing.