non-reflexive "myself"

[Nathan Bierma]

This was asked about in June 02 on ASD-L but not responded to:
- Send the document to Bob and myself.I decided to try to do a column on it
after hearing this:

- "The decision to take action was an operational matter, but was taken with
the
full knowledge of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the
Secretary of State for Transport, as well as myself." --Michael Chertoff, Aug.
'06

The use of "myself" to replace "me" seems like a reasonable nod to modesty and
possibly formality. The one treatment of this I'm aware of is Katie Wales in
her "Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English" (Cambridge UP, 1996), where she
concludes:

>> Evasions some of them most probably are ... But it is noteworthy that all
the examples in both (i) and (ii) involved the "inter-personal" pronouns of
addresser-addressee relations. The 'self'-forms appear more polite and
deferential than the simple pronouns, and it may well be that the physical
'length' of them, however 'inelegant' they may be appear in such contexts (see
Greenbaum and Whitcut 1988: 114), is symbolic here of a degree of indirectness.
...  [Wales, p. 195]

I confess I haven't checked CGEL yet on this. In the meantime, affirmations,
disputes, or addenda to Wales' observations?

Nathan Bierma
"On Language"
Chicago Tribune
www.nbierma.com/language

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