"I, myself......"?

[CioccolataCalda]

Please can you help me?

I find it really grates when newsreaders say the words above. Am I misguided or is it wrong?

Not an expert.....

I don't know, but when learning French at school they all used to say "me, my favourite colour is red" or whatever (in French though obviously) on the tapes and that used to annoy me too.

Myself is a reflexive, and is used to show something I did to me - e.g. I hurt myself, or for me "I bought a new coat for myself". I'm not quite sure I've heard the context you're referring to, but myself and yourself are frequently misused, so I'm presuming the newsreader is wrong.

Sometimes it is used to emphasise the fact that the speaker is referring to selfand that there is an oppposition between self and others?

--'I myself am very fond of the new layout.'

That's not wrong, is it?

I mean, obviously it is wrong to be fond of the new layout. But the use of 'myself' is not wrong? But how would you analyse this use?

I think it's tautological (is that the right word?) because you don't need to clarify that I is myself.

Hmm. Well, it's a redundancy or tautology, though they can be used for effect. It's similar to "I don't like it, me", which is colloquial and used for effect. Or "Me, I'm just lazy". I'm going to do some research...

Aha. The use you don't like, CC, is the emphatic use and does, I'm afraid to say, go all the way back to Old English:

I. Emphatic uses.

1. In apposition to the first person pronoun: in my own person; for my part; personally, as far as I am concerned.

a. In apposition to the subjective pronoun I.
When used for simple emphasis myself is generally placed immediately after I; in other positions there is often an explicit or implicit contrast with the idea of any other person performing the action. For additional emphasis it is often placed in initial position preceding the first person pronoun.
In Old English ic m self, where m is perhaps a kind of ethical dative and the uninflected self is in apposition to ic.

There are some pretty hideous abuses of -self pronouns, mind.

And by expertise you mean "institutional access to the OED", don't you?

I've nabbed DH's login to Dict Nat Biog, JSTOR, and a few others. So I might pass muster as an expert soon.

Google is my prosthetic brain these days. I hardly ever use the real one.

Thanks.

I am by no means a regular here and certainly don't have the credentials to hang out here either. I have thought about the use of this word today and remembered that the other use I don't like is "send the x back to myself at.....". Would a "me" suffice? Just sounds strange to me.

As I say I am just requesting your expertise here and not really a judgement if that is OK? Be gentle please

thanks

"send the x back to myself" is definitely wrong, and is a misuse of the reflexive I mentioned earlier.

So: "I'll send it back to myself at home when I've finished" is fine but telling someone "send it back to myself" is wrong, because the myself has to be the same as the subject of the sentence, which in this case is the person you're speaking to.

God, that was badly explained! DD has just banged her head, and dh has promised she can watch football on the cushion-puter (don't ask) so I'll have a better stab at it later. Sorry!

phew. I knew that I just didn't like the last use of it at all and always cringe when told "to send the application form back to myself" by someone trying to sound very correct.

Please don't worry about a more technical explanation. I am not sure I will get it.....