Reflexive pronoun abuse

13 posts & 11 voices | Started 1 hour ago by orangespyderman | Latest reply from smell_it

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orangespyderman - Member

Is it just where I work (I don't live in the UK, so don't have much other contact with the latest and greatest abuse of the English language)?

When on earth did it become a thing to (over)use the reflexive pronoun. A couple of examples just from one day:

- Can you send it to myself and David? (WTAF - David and myself would be at least the correct order)
- If any of you could let myself know...

This annoys the heck out of me. I think it's considered by those who do it as a more formal version of the correct English, but it makes my blood boil whenever I hear it (it's up there with "would of" - the people clearly don't understand that what they're saying makes no sense).

Gah!

Posted 1 hour ago #
Poopscoop - Member

Just off to Google.....

Posted 1 hour ago #
seosamh77 - Member

kinda maniac knows what a reflexive pronoun is?

Posted 1 hour ago #
Rob Hilton - Member

This bugs me too. Also: "I have ran it"

Posted 1 hour ago #
Poopscoop - Member

Nope.

None the wiser.

Posted 1 hour ago #
JoeG - Member

2/10. Too many correct sentences with too much proper punctuation and capitalization...

Posted 1 hour ago #
jamesgarbett - Member

Nope - it happens where I work to - people seem to think they sound more business-like/well-educated - far from it!

Posted 1 hour ago #

wordnumb - Member

Might just as well go ahead and start referring to yerself in the 3rd person.

Posted 1 hour ago #
eulach - Member

It's not "would of" it's "would uv", which is a perfectly acceptable truncation of have.

Posted 1 hour ago #
RAGGATIP - Member

Look, everyone needs to use correct grammar in a thread like this.
urhmmm...

where I work to

Posted 58 minutes ago #
orangespyderman - Member

It's not "would of" it's "would uv"
Alas, no. I've seen it written. "They" really believe that it's "would of", quite possibly because they've heard it elided into "woulduv" when spoken and assumed it's short for "would of".

EDIT : Oh and it's not a truncation, it's an elision. Having just written that, I'm perhaps a little bit too uptight about all of this after all

Posted 58 minutes ago #
wiggles - Member

reflexive pronoun

truncation

anyone have a dictionary?

Posted 56 minutes ago #
smell_it - Member

I just want to punch Dave.

Posted 54 minutes ago #

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