[Ads-l] Reflexive pronoun 'epidemic' in BrE

[David Kendal]

Has anyone investigated this more thoroughly? Does BrE really use more
reflexive pronouns than AmE? Is this a recent trend?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/opinion/english-for-yourself.html

Specifically, use of prep. + refl. pron. instead of the more standard
subj. pron.

As a BrE speaker I think I instinctively associate this pattern with
politeness or modesty in relatively formal contexts, particularly in
‘for myself’ meaning ‘if it were up to me’, with an implication that
the speaker has been persuaded to undertake a task which normally they
would not.

But that's all anecdotal.

dpk (David P. Kendal) · Nassauische Str. 36, 10717 DE · http://dpk.io/
  The House of Commons [is] like Noah’s Ark—a few men & many beasts.
                                             — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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