Me, myself, and I

In this post I hope to pass on to yourself and others the importance of the proper use of the -self and -selves words. Just writing that sentence made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The -self and -selves words are reflexive pronouns meaning they “reflect” back in the same sentence to the personal pronoun such as me, you, him, her. Think of the reflexive pronoun as reflecting in a mirror and it needs the pronoun to make the reflection. The phrase “me, myself, and I” is correct because myself reflects back on the reference to me. However, the song title “Dancing with Myself” is not correct because there is no pronoun for myself to reflect. If it were “I am dancing with myself,” it would be correct because then the myself is reflecting back on I. Using myself in a sentence as the subject of the sentence is wrong. Using myself without a pronoun to reflect back on is wrong. I can’t tell you the number of times I see and hear something like “Jane went to the mall with Mary and myself.” There is no personal pronoun in that sentence for myself to reflect. If you take Mary out of the mall party, would you really say “Jane went to the mall with myself”? I certainly hope not! So the sentence should be changed to “Jane went to the mall with Mary and me” because Jane would go to the mall with me and not with myself whether Mary was there or not.

Unless your sentence contains a reference to you already, you should not use myself. The same goes for yourself, themselves, himself, herself, etc. Unless you’ve already mentioned you, them, him, or her, you can’t add -self or -selves. Personally I think there are very few instances where any of the -selves fit or are necessary, so just don’t use them. Trust me, using myself does not make you sound more intelligent. In fact, just the opposite is true. If you must use it, however, make sure it reflects back to the appropriate pronoun. If the -self in your sentence can’t reflect something, just don’t use it. You can guarantee that is a way to make yourself very happy!

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