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Me, Myself (Reflexive Pronouns)
Call Myself Anytime?
From the redoubtable Jane Greer of Bismarck, N.D. (see “A Reader’s Potpourri”):
“ ‘If you have any questions, contact my secretary or myself.’ Writers use this because they remember (correctly) from English class that “Bob and me played ball” (where “me” is part of the subject) is wrong, and generalize (incorrectly) that “Give the ball to Bob and me” (where “me” is part of the object of the preposition) must also be wrong — or at least somehow less genteel than “Bob and myself.” No, no, no. The “self” words are reflexive pronouns, to be used only when the subject and object of a verb are the same person or thing, as in “I hurt myself” or “He hurt himself” or “The dog hurt itself.” Similarly, “Don’t hurt yourself” is right because the understood subject, “you,” is the same as the object, “yourself.” But “I’ll send this to Jim and yourself” is wrong; “I” and “yourself” are two different people. The English for it is “to Jim and you.”
Speaking of “myself,” a note prompted by the discussion in these pages of “Older Than Him“ came from Loren Tretyakov, head of the translation department at the Russian news agency Interfax, where all reports originate in Russian. Noting that her copy editors, native English speakers, often misuse pronouns, she went on:
“My contribution is: ‘ “It is assumed that somebody, clearly Primakov and myself are meant, sells Cabinet positions,” he said.’
“Wouldn’t ‘Primakov and I’ be correct?”
It would. Broken down, the clause says that “Primakov is meant and I am meant.” What’s wanted in such cases is a pronoun that is a subject, in this case “I,” not an object. We can’t say “myself (or me) is meant,” so we have to say “Primakov and I are meant.”
CJR
