The man in the mirror . . .

Charles C Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Fri Jul 16 16:38:41 UTC 2010


Pondering the possible proverbial province of the popular conceit of being able to look at oneself in the mirror ('having a clear conscience'), I have been encountering the expression (not-quite-right, to me) "look yourself in the mirror"--with some 400,000 Google hits (another 270,000 for "look himself/herself in the mirror").

Is that a merger of transitive "look (someone, yourself) in the eye (up-and-down, etc.)" with "look at yourself in the mirror"?  Does "at"-free "look yourself in the mirror" sound odd to others of y'all?

--Charlie

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list