non-reflexive "myself"

[Wilson Gray]

In BE, the use of "Me myself, I ...," as in, "Me myself, I voted for
Dubyah both times," is quite common. Its meaning approximates that of
the disclaimer sometimes used here: "Your mileage may vary" = "This is
my action / opinion / analysis, whatever. Others may not agree." This
attitude is also expressed in BE by tacking, "but that's just me" onto
the end of a sentence, as in, "Those pointing out that there are
background chants that merely *include* the syllables, "doo(-)wop," as
a means of refuting the claim that there exists only a single R&B
recording whose background chant consists of *just* the syllables,
"doo(-)wop," can not be serious; but that's just me." ;-)

-Wilson

On 8/25/06, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: non-reflexive "myself"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Aug 25, 2006, at 9:08 AM, Nathan Bierma wrote:
>
> > 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?
>
> CGEL, sec. 3.1.4 ("Override reflexives") of ch. 17, starting on p.
> 1494. notice that CGEL, in common with almost all grammarians, uses
> "reflexive" as the name of a form, and refers to the various uses of
> reflexive pronouns by other terms (CGEL's "basic reflexives",
> "override reflexives", and "emphatic uses of reflexive pronouns";
> others have other terminology).
>
> CGEL notes that "myself" can avoid sticky problems with nominative/
> accusative choice, especially in coordination and comparison.  it is
> certainly very common in coordination, even in subject position; a
> few examples from my collection:
>
> Myself and many other scientists in the area [marine ecology] are
> alarmed that...
>
> Myself and all the other [radio] hosts are...
>
> Myself and the other writers [on Arrested Development] all come from
> situation comedy.
>
> here the speakers are primarily referring to themselves, and the
> others are viewed as extensions of the speakers.  so the first person
> should come first in the coordination, but "I" is strongly disfavored
> (prescriptively) as a first conjunct.  also, the first person pronoun
> should bear significant accent, and "I" doesn't have a lot of
> phonological substance for this purpose.  so "myself" is a good
> choice on two different, though related, grounds.
>
> I have plenty of examples from writing, some in pretty formal contexts.
>
> "X and myself" also occurs with some frequency.  i haven't worked
> through enough examples to see what's going on, but i think that
> speakers are using both the choice of "myself" and the ordering of
> conjuncts to convey subtle pragmatic differences, especially
> differences in perspective, emphasis, and contrast.
>
> that said, unanchored "myself" is one of the great bugbears of the
> advice literature.  it's on almost everyone's Nasty List, usually
> close to the top.  however, MWDEU and CGEL both point out that it's
> very common, and are unwilling to dismiss it merely as a vulgar error.
>
> some of the "myself" examples have an antecedent for the reflexive,
> but one that's not eligible to serve as an antecedent for a basic
> reflexive.  there are also third-person cases of this sort: "Ann
> claimed that junior lecturers like herself were being exploited".
> CGEL points out that in these cases, the antecedent
> characteristically refers to the person whose perspective  is being
> taken in the discourse.  in fact, the superior verb is quite often
> one of speaking or thinking -- a fact that has led me (in a Language
> Log posting and in a sci.lang posting) to connect these data to the
> phenomenon of logophoricity.  (some languages have a special set of
> pronouns for this purpose, and many use reflexive pronouns
> logophorically.)
>
> i'll send nathan files with examples and a file with my Language Log
> and sci.lang postings.  if anyone else is interested, i'll ship these
> items off to them too.
>
> arnold
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
There's only one thing that money can't buy and that's poverty.

--Jack Benny

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org