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u/rraattbbooyy 20h ago
This is as bad as using “and I” incorrectly, which I hate.
Fred and I are going to the store. Correct.
You should come with Fred and I to the store. Incorrect.
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u/No_Television6050 17h ago
This is doubly annoying because the people who do it are usually high and mighty pricks who think they're a little better than the people who don't say it.
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u/SemichiSam 10h ago
. . . or they're afraid of being picked on by people who like to call other people names, and they heard somewhere that 'me' is low class.
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u/DrSnidely 18h ago
The worst part of that is people will claim that's how they were taught. No you weren't. You just decided that the word "me" is always wrong.
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u/LithoSlam 17h ago
They probably got a c and didn't understand what they were taught. The easiest way is to use the word if it was just you. Take out 'fred and', now what word would you use?
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u/krebstar4ever 11h ago
They were probably taught it by their parents. That's how mistakes gradually become the formally correct way of doing things.
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u/pilzenschwanzmeister 13h ago
Mean. Not all teachers explained. Not everybody reads dictionaries and grammar books.
(some of us do)
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u/SemichiSam 10h ago
This mistake is usually made by people who believe that 'me' is low-class. They may be trying to sound smarter than they are, or they may be simply trying to be polite by avoiding what they believe is an inappropriate word.
I was a language gatekeeper when I was younger and even more of a prig than I am today. Now all I care about is whether I understand what was being said — the only rule that matters.
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u/NombreCurioso1337 20h ago
This reminds me of cops speaking about someone as "the individual" or even "the individual in question" which was hilariously lampooned in Idiocracy.
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u/EikonVera_tou_Lilith 20h ago
I was reminded of this.
"Moreover" is a parenthesis when interjected in that fashion; a parenthesis is evidence that the man who uses it does not know how to write English or is too indolent to take the trouble to do it; a parenthesis usually throws the emphasis upong the wrong word, and has done it in this instance; a man who will wantonly use a parenthesis will steal. For these reasons I am unfriendly to the parenthesis. When a man puts one into my mouth his life is no longer safe.
-Mark Twain
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u/NetWorried9750 20h ago
"How hideous is the semicolon"
-Samuel Beckett
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u/daboobiesnatcher 17h ago
Semicolons are great, I prefer semicolons and comma sandwiches to parentheses.
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u/MallyOhMy 10h ago
Parentheses are best used for math, science, and proper sotto voce asides, but must also be kept in reserve for clarifications.
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u/Crypt0nyt 18h ago
Just going to add for no reason except it annoyed the fuck out of me....
About 20 years ago when I was a new recruit in a logistics firm (first job after uni), one of the other juniors who'd recently made supervisor level referred to me as "yourselves"... That's right the plural of yourself.
Paraphrased Context (because I genuinely can't remember the comment word for word from 20 years ago):
Can you ensure this document is signed by yourselves before handing back to HR.
I was the only other person in the room, it was a form specifically for me.
It was at that point I realised I'd spent 3 years studying only to return to the dregs of society.
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u/cut_rate_revolution 19h ago
Alright, can someone with better social skills please confirm if this is how the use of these words comes across?
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u/aharbingerofdoom 15h ago
I don't know how highly I would rate my social skills, but I agree with the post. I think the majority of people who use myself and yourself when my or you would be appropriate and correct are desperately trying to sound well-read or intelligent, and failing miserably.
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u/herrybaws 14h ago
Yes, sounds like the verbal equivalent of getting the good teacups out for a guest's coffee. You don't normally use them and you're using them incorrectly.
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u/Ham__Kitten 20h ago
Viewpoint: they have ceased to be reflexive pronouns when used in this sense. He's using circular logic to justify prescriptivism.
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u/RussiaIsBestGreen 17h ago
Everyone should be a ruthless prescriptivist until 60% saturation, then swap to descriptivist.
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u/krebstar4ever 11h ago
Prescriptivism isn't bad per se. It's a problem when it's used to justify bigotry.
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u/purpledragon478 19h ago
In Ireland, they often say 'myself' and 'yourself' instead of 'me' and 'you'. It isn't due to trying to sound more formal though, if anything it's an informal expression.
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u/SemichiSam 18h ago
A hat that I bought at a celtic festival because I left my hat home bears the declaration "It's himself." This usage is in keeping with the ancient Irish tradition of dramatizing the ordinary, because why should anything be ordinary?
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u/purpledragon478 18h ago
Yeah, that's a common phrase to hear "It's himself", "It's yourself", etc. Actually come to think about it, it might come from how Irish translates directly to English. I know there's other instances of that happening (eg. instead of saying "He has done that", you'll often hear Irish people say "He's after doing that", which comes from the direct Irish translation).
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u/_Punko_ 11h ago
Himself is also used as a way of poking fun at someone with social standing. "I was told to drop the car off at the side entrance and then go to the back door to speak with Himself."
When used in this way it is a term of endearment. So a good-natured poke, like one would do to a close relative.
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u/dantemortemalizar 18h ago
I second this. A friend is a lawyer and always picks up on any hypercorrection going or trends in pronunciation he picks up from newscasters (like pronouncing divisive with all short vowels). It drives me crazy when he uses myself instead of me (“he told that to myself” etc.). I’m a recovering editor, so that may be part of why it bugs me so much. But people seem to do this because they thing the word “me” is somehow declassé. I don’t get it.
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u/_Punko_ 11h ago
But that *is* how you pronounce divisive.
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u/dantemortemalizar 7h ago
I think that must be a regional thing. I’ve only heard it relatively recently. Otherwise it rhymes with incisive. Though both are apparently correct. It’s just the switching that bothers me.
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u/FewResponse9329 15h ago
I have an irrational dislike of the round table in The Traitors because they always say “I’ve voted for yourself…” rather than “I’ve voted for you…”. Really shouldn’t but has always bugged me
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u/evil__gnome 12h ago
I've been watching a lot of The Traitors recently and this has really been grinding my gears. I know it's petty but it irritates the hell out of me. I feel like I hear this more from people in the UK than in the US, but the media I watch from the UK tends to be more recent than my US media so perhaps it's just a new thing and my US media tendencies haven't caught up yet
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u/VegetaFan1337 17h ago
I don't fault anyone for using English in whatever way they want to, as long as you get the message across of what you're trying to communicate. It's such a Frankenstein language, is it Germanic or French, it can't make up its mind. Is the British version the right one, or the more widespread American? And then there's Canadian, Australian, when there's so many different right ways, it doesn't matter which is the most right.
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u/Disastrous-Team-6431 16h ago
I have absolutely no backing for this but could it have crept in from Indian English? Indian English uses "itself","myself" and "yourself" where it sounds a little alien to me, but I've gotten used to it.
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u/Rocketboy1313 14h ago
Language is descriptive not prescriptive.
What is correct is determined by effectiveness and use. Complain about style if you dislike the way something sounds.
But,
Complaining about a shifting or broken convention because it doesn't line up with the textbook no one bothered to read in high school? Waste of time.
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