Dear Mr. Lederer: A day does not go by that I do not hear someone use myself in place of me or I. For example, “If you need any assistance place call John, Mary or myself”. When I hear this, it is as though someone is dragging fingernails across a chalkboard. What is the correct use of I, me and myself?
— Cassi Fay, Normal Heights
I congratulate Cassi Fay on her penetrating analysis of the epidemic that I have dubbed the Myself Reflex. The most succinct statement that explains why so many speakers and writers misuse, abuse and overuse the pronoun myself comes from Red Smith, the eloquent New York sports writer: “Myself is the foxhole of ignorance where cowards take refuge because they were taught that me is vulgar and I is egotistical.”
In other words, speakers and writers are often addlepated or chickenhearted about choosing the proper cases for their pronouns: the nominative case – I – for subjects and the accusative case – me – for objects. So they cleave to myself as an all-purpose pronoun.
The only three contexts in which myself should ever appear are:
(1) as a reflexive pronoun used as an object of a verb whose subject is the same: “I hurt myself climbing the walls of my home.”
(2) as an intensifier: “I myself wouldn’t be caught dead bungee jumping.”
(3) in special idioms: “I wrote this column all by myself.”
Dear Mr. Lederer: I am sure you have noticed how so many “experts” in radio and television media now refer to people as that: “I know a lady that always wears a hat.” “I have one student that never does his homework” It seems to me in our technologically advanced society, there are so many ways we objectify people (e.g., soldiers are troops). Do you see this language tendency to be symbolic of a greater trend of dehumanizing us? As a high school English teacher, my effort to combat this “trendency” seems to be as futile as trying to empty the ocean with a fork.
— Tom Strathairn, San Diego
For centuries, that has been used to introduce restrictive adjective clauses that modify human beings, as in Mark Twain’s “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” But to my ear, that is too distant and impersonal for persons. Stick with who, whom and whose for human beings (and animals who have names) and that and which for things and ideas.
Dear Dr. Lederer: Apropos of your columns on apostrophes, two other judges and I have had an Over-the-Line team named, using some discretion, “The Old Professionals.” On T-shirts we easily spelled out the entire team name, but on the hats and visors we shortened the name to the “Old Pro’s.” In the first incarnation of the team we used what I would consider the correct version on the hat, “Old Pros,” but people always wanted to know “What’s a Pros?” Heck, even the Outlook spellchecker called me on the word Pros. But since there was no possessive intended, we stuck with the correct wording the first year and then cast it aside in future years in favor of the more readable “Old Pro’s.” Only a few of our more literate friends questioned the use of the possessive on a hat with no sentence structure. My question: Is there a grammatical rationale that supports our continuing to use “Old Pro’s,” possessive or not?
— Ned Huntington, Superior Court Judge (Ret.), San Diego
As an unrepentant Harvard Law School dropout, I am proud to tell His Honor that there is NO rationale for writing the name as “Old Pro’s.” That His Honor’s spellchecker flagged “Old Pros” doesn’t mean it’s wrong. That device is far from infallible. The “prespostrophe” (my word for apostrophe catastrophe) in “Old Pro’s” is unreadable because it looks like a dangling possessive — “Old Pro’s what?” I fervently hope that The Old Professionals will return to being The Old Pros.
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com verbivore.com