| About Myself Hey, this is my homepage, so I have to say something about myself. Sometimes it is hard to introduce yourself because you know yourself so well that you do not know where to start with. Let me give a try to see what kind of image you have about me through my self-description. I hope that my impression about myself and your impression about me are not so different. Here it goes. I am a person who is positive about every aspect of life. There are many things I like to do, to see, and to experience. I like to read, I like to write; I like to think, I like to dream; I like to talk, I like to listen. I like to see the sunrise in the morning, I like to see the moonlight at night; I like to feel the music flowing on my face, I like to smell the wind coming from the ocean. I like to look at the clouds in the sky with a blank mind, I like to do thought experiment when I cannot sleep in the middle of the night. I like flowers in spring, rain in summer, leaves in autumn, and snow in winter. I like to sleep early, I like to get up late; I like to be alone, I like to be surrounded by people. I like country’s peace, I like metropolis’ noise; I like the beautiful west lake in Hangzhou, I like the flat cornfield in Champaign. I like delicious food and comfortable shoes; I like good books and romantic movies. I like the land and the nature, I like people. And, I like to laugh. I always wanted to be a great writer, like Victor Hugo who wrote "Les Miserable", or like Roman Roland who wrote "John Christopher". They have influenced millions of people through their books. I also wanted to be a great psychologist, like William James or Sigmund Freud, who could read people’s mind. Of course, I am nowhere close to these people, yet. I am just someone who does some teaching, some research, and some writing. But my dream is still alive. This is a brief introduction of myself. If you are interested in knowing more, read my articles or take a look at my pictures. Do not expect too much, and keep your sense of humor. Grammar Subscribe To Grammar Girl's Free Newsletter Top 5 Tips 1 Affect Versus Effect 2 Who Versus Whom 3 Lay Versus Lie 4 Ending a Sentence With a Preposition 5 "Further" Versus "Farther" About the Host: Mignon Fogarty is the host of Grammar Girl and founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. Prior to becoming a grammar guru, Mignon was a magazine and technical writer, and an entrepreneur. Mignon has a B.A. in English from the University of Washington in Seattle and an M.S. in biology from Stanford University. Read More Recent Tips What is a Shibboleth? October 31, 2011 How to Search a Corpus October 27, 2011 Don't Call This a Superlative Tip October 27, 2011 "Ado" Versus "Adieu" October 24, 2011 Recommended Reading & Listening Garner's Modern American Usage Chicago Manual of Style AP Stylebook The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation Common Errors in English Usage Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies Things That Make Us [Sic] Global Wording The Adventure of English Find me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter! @aromamusings Thanks! 9 minutes ago @paulwiggins Happy to help! about 12 hours ago @bonniegillespie Thanks! about 14 hours ago Get the Grammar Girl Widget For Your Site Home Grammar Girl How to Use "Myself" and Other Reflexive Pronouns How to Use "Myself" and Other Reflexive Pronouns Episode 40: February 9, 2007 General Grammar Subscribe Newsletter iTunes Podcast RSS Article RSS Tools Download MP3 Comments (91) Share Tip Sponsored By Legal Lad here, filling in again for Grammar Girl. The poor girl is still sick. She asked me to thank everyone who has sent "get well" messages. She appreciates them a lot. How to Use Myself Today's topic is how to use the word myself. Grammar Girl says that how to use myself is among the top 10 or 20 questions that people send in to the show. Here's an example: Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Chuck Tomasi, your interim Grammar Guy from ChuckChat.com, home of podcasts too numerous to mention. I hear and see examples of the misuse of the word myself all the time. For example, an e-mail went out from HR like this, “Please contact Squiggly, Aardvark, or myself with questions.” Could you please help listeners know when the word myself is appropriate and when to use a more appropriate word? Thanks! Excellent, Chuck! Let's dissect what's wrong with that sentence: "Please contact Squiggly, Aardvark, or myself with questions." The simplest way to think of it is like this: How would you say the sentence without Squiggly and the aardvark? Then it usually becomes obvious! You would say, “Please contact me with questions,” not, “Please contact myself with questions.” So when you add in Squiggly and the aardvark, that doesn't change anything. It's still correct to say, “Please contact Squiggly, aardvark, or me with questions.” What are Reflexive Pronouns? Digging into the topic a little deeper, myself is what's called a reflexive pronoun. That can be hard to remember, but just think about looking into a mirror and seeing your reflection. You'd say, “I see myself in the mirror.” You see your reflection, and myself is a reflexive pronoun. Other reflexive pronouns include himself, herself, yourself, itself, and themselves. A reflexive pronoun is always the object of a sentence; it can never be the subject. Grammar Girl has talked about it before, but a subject is the one doing something in a sentence, and the object is the one having something done to it. If I step on Squiggly, I am the subject and Squiggly is the object. You would never say, “Myself stepped on Squiggly,” so you would also never say, “Aardvark and myself stepped on Squiggly.” Another case where it is correct to use myself is when you are both the subject and the object of a sentence. For example, “I see myself playing marimbas,” or, “I'm going to treat myself to a mud bath.” In both of these cases you are the object of your own action, so myself is the right word to use. Use Reflexive Pronouns to Add Emphasis Reflexive pronouns can also be used to add emphasis to a sentence. (In case you care, they are then called intensive pronouns.) For example, if you had witnessed a murder, you could say, “I myself saw the madman's handiwork.” Sure, it's a tad dramatic, but it's grammatically correct. If you want to emphasize how proud you are of your new artwork, you could say, “I painted it myself.” Again, myself just adds emphasis. The meaning of the sentence doesn't change if you take out the word myself; it just has a different feeling because now it lacks the added emphasis. There you go! The quick and dirty tip is to think about how you would write the sentence if you were the only one in it, and then use that pronoun. For example, “Please contact me.” That's where people get most hung up using myself. And then you can also remember that it's OK to use reflexive pronouns for emphasis and when you are the object of your own action. We have an excellent book giveaway this week, but first Grammar Girl also asked me to send a special thank-you to Mr. Rish's Enriched English 10 class at Newark High School in Ohio, and especially to a student named Brandi, who wrote and recorded a story imagining how Grammar Girl spends her time. Grammar Girl says it cheered her up when she was feeling low. The book we're giving away this week is Words of a Feather: A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs, by Murray Suid. If you're interested in the origin of words, I think you'll enjoy this book, because it examines pairs of words that seem unrelated but have similar roots; for example, grammar and glamor. It was interesting because Stewart from Hawaii had just called in to note that grammar and glamor have the same origin and then this book showed up with more details. Grammar, over the years, has meant the study of literature, then the study of Latin, then the study of magic and astrology, and it is at this point in history when the word glamor arose as a corrupt form of grammar. Glamor then went on to take on the meaning related to beauty and charm that it has today, while grammar went back to relating just to language. The publisher was very generous and provided four books for our giveaway, so the winners are Corey from Atlanta and listeners named Stephanie, Jean, and Cheryl. Congratulations and please check your e-mail for instructions. Again, that book is Words of a Feather. Thank you for listening. Again, I'm Legal Lad, the host of Legal Lad's Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Lawful Life, filling in for Grammar Girl. My show this week gives you tips for what to do if you're pulled over by the police in the United States, and you can find it right now at QuickAndDirtyTips.com or at iTunes. Questions and comments for Grammar Girl go to feedback@quickanddirtytips.com. Mr. Manners talks about wedding gift etiquette. Was this Tip Helpful? Yes No Comments for How to Use "Myself" and Other Reflexive Pronouns Subscribe to Comments Jae Brown 10/30/2011 6:04:33 AM I sat by myself in the airport. Someone told me to say with myself. Correct answer please!!?? jorge 10/23/2011 9:50:13 AM I have an example that is a little more difficult to extrapolate: 'This flu bug has gone to each member of my family, except myself.' "Myself" or "me," which is the correct one? Please tell why. What confuses me is the word "my." Does it make the object, sort of a first person object, and therefore the secondary use of "me" turn into "myself?" ??? jorge 10/23/2011 9:34:28 AM Grammar Girl: You said, "Another case where it is correct to use myself...." One problem, I am not seeing an example of the first situation to use it. I think you left that out. You talked about how to recognize when to use "me." So it sounds like the only times a person is to use "myself" is when the subject is already "I" and then the object needs to be "myself." It appears when the subject is not "I," then the object can be "me." The second time to use it is for emphasis, when again the subject is already "I" and therefore the emphasis of using "myself" for emphasis, instead of a second "I" or "me." Correct? danielle 9/27/2011 10:15:53 PM Is it correct to use myself in this sentence or I? Both, John and ____ enjoy this task; in fact it is our traditional role. Fannie Peterson 9/21/2011 6:42:22 PM Will you coordinate a meeting and invite me, JoAnn and others who may need to attend? I AnWulf 8/23/2011 11:23:48 PM @Phik ... "You" in English is both singular and plural. It is also nominative and objective ... Long story as to how it all came about. ""Dave and I have looked through the documentation that was sent by you." ... Is correct. If you're in the South, you can say, "Dave and I have looked through the documentation that was sent by y'all." Or "you guys" if you're up north. Any way you want to look at it, "yourself" is wrong, wrong, wrong! Jamba 8/11/2011 5:21:08 PM @Tim, It ocurred to me that I didn't completely answer your question. The other error in one of your arguments is that "Pete and you/I" are not the subject of the sentence. The subject is "That". This does bring up a minor idiosyncracy to the general rule. If you had said, "That photo makes me look like a squiggly aardvark. That's not a very nice way to refer to myself," it's still correct usage, despite the subject (That) and the object (myself) not being the same, so long as the comment originated with you, through a string of implied subjects and objects: "I think that photo makes me look like a squiggly aardvark, though that's not a very nice way for me to refer to myself." Jamba 8/11/2011 4:34:14 PM @Tim, Both of those are 100% incorrect. The grammatically correct comment would be, "That's not a very nice way to refer to Pete or me." Think of it like this -- if Pete weren't involved, you would say, "That's not a very nice way to refer to me." "Me" is correct (and natural) in the second instance, as, similarly (though perhaps not naturally) it is in the first. The reason it may not sound correct is due to a linguistic phenomenon known as hypercorrection. It has become so ingrained that, for example, "Pete and me are in the photo," is incorrect, that the pairing "Pete and me" begins to sound inherently wrong regardless of its usage. The only way "That's not a very nice way to refer to myself" would ever be correct is if you yourself were doing the referring. Tim 8/5/2011 6:09:28 AM This has been causing an argument on facebook. Someone made a comment on a photo of me and I jokingly said, "That's not a very nice way to refer to myself and Pete" Cue disagreements on the correct use of 'myself' some felt it should be "Pete and I" and others felt it was correct because we are both the subject and the object. What are your views? Ella 8/1/2011 11:08:06 AM You can just say ' that was sent in by you'. 'You' is not necessarily singular, just a means of addressing other(s) directly. Phik 7/23/2011 4:23:12 AM Ok. The incorrect use of the word 'myself' is a massive bug bearer of mine at the minute. But can somebody educate me on the following please... Let's imagine for a moment that we are in a meeting discussing, for example, a product with 2 representatives from the supplier, and I want to say the following... "Dave and I have looked through the documentation that was sent through by yourselves" Now I'm 99.9% certain this is incorrect, so what is the correct way to say it. If there were one rep I would say "...that you sent through", but there are 2. Is there a correct way to say this without changing it? For example, I could say "...that was sent through by your company", but that's less personal. Similarly, I could say "...that John sent through", but that would only work if I knew who sent the documentation. I'm probably being incredibly thick here, but can somebody help me out please? Thank you! Twon 6/24/2011 3:09:17 PM Can someone please tell me why mines is incorrect unless you are talking about things that explode? Lin Anderson 6/17/2011 10:14:07 AM Dad and I. Both words are used as subjects, even though the "to the store" is understood. In a case like that, just finish the sentence in your mind and you should be able to figure out if it's a subject or object. H Name: * Email: * Comment: * Type the two words: Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help * Fields marked with "*" are required. Have a Question or a Tip For Us? Submit it Here! From the Store Tired of trying to figure out what to eat for dinner? Get all the help you need in Nutrition Diva's Secrets for a Healthy Diet: What to Eat, What to Avoid, and What to Stop Worrying About. The book is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Powell's, iBooks, and at bookstores everywhere. Come Fly With Me! Proper Airplane Etiquette Modern Manners Guy Top Online Tools to Make Air Travel Easy Get-It-Done Guy How to Fly With a Dog The Dog Trainer How to Eat Healthy While Traveling Nutrition Diva |
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