Month: July 2013

“I will have the flowers delivered to Jim and myself.”

Passive Voice, Pronouns

“I will have the flowers delivered to Jim and myself.” is an example of a type of sentence that I have heard often.

While the speaker deserves kudos for putting the third person — Jim, in this case — before himself, his erroneous use of the pronoun “myself” in this sentence deserves discussion.

One basic test of a pronoun in a sentence is to remove all associated nouns or pronouns to see whether the pronoun is correct.

When we remove “Jim and” from the original sentence, “I will have the flowers delivered to myself.” is the result.

Why is “myself” the incorrect pronoun in this simplified sentence?

Perhaps the best way to explain this is to talk about passive voice.

Who will deliver the flowers? We do not know!

Both the original sentence and the simplified sentence are in passive voice.

That is, there is an unidentified actor who will deliver the flowers.

The word “myself” can be either a reflexive pronoun or an intensive pronoun:

  • Reflexive: “I hit myself on the head.” — The recipient of the person doing the hitting is the person doing the hitting! In other words, “myself” reflects the hitter (“I”).
     
  • Intensive: “I painted the house myself.” — The painter of the house is emphasizing that he, and nobody else, painted the house. In other words, “myself” intensifies the painter (“I”).

Given that the unidentified actor is a third person and not the first-person singular “I” in the original or simplified sentence, it becomes clear that “myself” cannot be correct.

“I will have the flowers delivered to me.” becomes obvious as the corrected form of the simplified sentence, and “I will have the flowers delivered to Jim and me.” becomes obvious as the corrected form of the original sentence.

“Jane taught Mary to see [her|herself] as a victim.”

Pronouns

Many people use “myself” when they should use “me”.

For example, they might say to someone else, “Please send it to myself.” (even though “Please send it to me.” is the correct form).

I love examples that will teach how the “self” pronouns are NOT interchangeable with the non-“self” pronouns.

Here is one such example.

Think about these two sentences:

  1. “Jane taught Mary to see herself as a victim.”
  2. “Jane taught Mary to see her as a victim.”

Jane taught Mary something in each sentence.

Given that the object of “to see” in both sentences is a female pronoun — “herself” or “her” — we know that Jane taught Mary about seeing a female.

What female is being seen as a victim in sentence #1?

The phrase “taught Mary to see herself” in sentence #1 tells us that Mary is seeing Mary as a victim.

Who is the female to which “her” refers in sentence #2?

There are two possible right answers and one wrong answer.

The wrong answer is Mary.

Without “herself” in “taught Mary to see ___ as a victim”, there is no implication of reflexivity for Mary.

The two possible right answers are Jane and a third female.

“Jane taught Mary to see her as a victim.” as a standalone sentence implies that Jane taught Mary to see Jane as a victim. We have no context for a third female, so we must conclude that Mary sees Jane as the victim.

If “Jane and Mary were discussing Sue.” immediately preceded “Jane taught Mary to see her as a victim.”, then the correct answer regarding “her” would be that Jane taught Mary to see Sue as a victim.