The man in the mirror . . .

[Jonathan Lighter]

It does.

JL

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      The man in the mirror . . .
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
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