Yourself, Myself!

[DavidUK]

I know there are are more important issues but... is it only me that gets really irritated by the apparently increasing and incorrect use of "yourself", "myself" and "ourselves" in place of "you", "me" and "us"?

Someone actually said to me the other day "If yourselves could give ourselves a call.." when he should have said "If you could give us a call ...".

Another favourite is "Please contact Fred or myself for further information". It should be "me"!

[Octavius]

nope, just yourself

[rampart]

Yes, it bothers me. So does the incorrect use of "hopefully" among others.

[tanyavee]

Hello is that you there yourself DavidUK?

[Octavius]

Is that me myself and tanyavee?

[Hgrove]

I don't like it, or "hopefully", either.

[jno]

'Contact Fred or myself' - I suspect it's because people are unsure about whether it should be 'I' or 'me' and use this as a way round the problem. Fair enough, I think. But yourselves call ourselves - that's wonderful. Totally unnecessary for 'Call us'.

[silly moo]

I hate it too.
If we don't teach grammar at school what can we expect?

[flaming]

My thoughts:   I think most languages have an equivalent to the word 'myself' ,which should beused as an emphasis word,  like in 'me, myself''or 'you yourself know that....    Alternatively 'I'll go myself'  emphasises who will go as does the order 'you go yourself'.

'Yourselves' 'ourselves' - these are old-fashioned and formal but grammatically correct when you are speaking about a firm, (i.e. a body of people) contacting another firm or company, to denote that we are speaking beyond the personal, that it is a company matter.   'Give us a call' is in modern common usage about your company when you are speaking on their behalf, I myself agree!    (People used to say 'your goodselves' to a valued customer.  Imagine that')

jno has a good point about the 'myself' covering the uncertainty of whether to use 'I' or 'me'  the correct usage being easily determined by putting the clause 'fred or' aside and then it would read 'contact me'.   Equally 'Fred or I should be contacted' - put aside 'Fred or' and then we have 'I should be contacted'

At this hour of the morning I cannot remember the grammatical rules about 'us' but something nags away. A sentence mustn't end in it, perhaps? We need Peter the Pedant to post on this one.

[QmunkE]

Although these uses are grammatically incorrect, according to dictionary.com, many authors don't really give a stuff about the correctness of the sentence and use them anyway - and to be honest, I can't see any problem with it.

[netibiza]

I also hate it when people incorrectly say me instead of I-  or me and Fred instead of Fred and I - as in Fred and I went to the shops.

[kaktus]

Ohh netty, that one must exist in all languages :). It annoys the hell out me too!

[wellhungjock]

What did you and Fred buy netibiza if you go again can me come to!:-)

[netibiza]

whj - Fred and I bought a toilet seat ha ha

[DavidUK]

That's the wonderful thing about the AB - you ask a question about grammar and it ends up in the toilet! Thanks neti :-)

[jenstar]

I don't understand why DavidUK thinks using "yourself", "myself" and "ourselves" is wrong. It may sometimes be a rather silly affectation, but I don't see that it's actually *wrong*.

[jno]

jenstar, I think 'yourselves' is usually the object of a sentence - after the verb, and meaning the person the action is done to - 'you've hurt yourselves'. (Also, it's mostly used when the person doing the action is that same as the person it's done to: I've hurt you but You've hurt yourselves.) It isn't usually the subject, coming before the verb and meaning the person who does the action: 'Yourselves can go now'. This would normally just be 'You can go now'. And 'If yourselves could give ourselves a call' would normally just be 'Call us'.

As to why those words were spoken... well, sometimes people need to think about things they've been told at their own pace, so they use longer words in response, in order to give themselves a bit more time; and it can become a habit even when they're not thinking at great length about a particular conversation.

[landie]

It is, perhaps, something to do with the modern lazy way of speaking and the inability to apply grammar to a sentence.

When unsure whether to say 'you and I' or 'you and me' there is a tendency to say ****** and myself.

I was always taught to split the phrase or sentence up to highlight the correct usage. For example 'Jane and I went to the cinema'. Jane went to the cinema and I went to the cinema. (you wouldn't say 'me went to the cinema' or 'myself went to the cinema').

Or, 'It's a good thing for Johnny and me that the bus was late or we would not have caught it'. It was a good thing for Johnny and it was a good thing for me that the bus was late.

Sorry if I went on a little.

[Clare A]

I agree with jno & Iandie that the use of 'myself', etc., is because of people's nervousness about the use of 'you' & 'me'. It's instinctive now to me, but I used to employ the trick of taking the other person out of the sentence and asking whether 'me caught the bus' would really make sense! I still hear people saying such things as 'Take some home, because there's far too much for Bob and I'. Somehow, people default to the use of 'I' rather than 'me' in the belief that it's more polite or correct.