myself ! ...when it replaces "me," that
is.
I read two novels recently, which I enjoyed very
much. The first is The Crown, by Nancy Bilyeau. (2012) Ms. Bilyeau offers an historical novel
involving nice nuns, bad bishops, Henry VIII, and other engaging players. Instead
of endeavoring to write dialogue in sixteenth-century English, she allows her
characters to speak in a way that is sensible and just slightly formal. However, like their twenty-first century
counterparts, her young men and women frequently use a reflexive pronoun when a
nominative one needed. There are many
erring characters who say “myself” when they mean “me.” Here is my favorite:
“Tell everything you know
about myself.” Aagh! How do editors miss bloopers
like this?
The second book is The Lantern, by Deborah
H. Lawrenson. (2011) It is a captivating page-turner, well-written and nearly
grammar-goof free. The author creates a well-crafted mystery surrounding a
decaying property in the French countryside. Her descriptive writing enables
the reader to feel the sunshine, smell the lavender, sense the damp walls, and
fear the unbalanced brother. The writing is so good that I almost hate to
mention this mangled pronoun situation. Somehow, though, the editors failed to
see this:
"When you first meet someone and they tell you
stories about themselves, you have no reason to doubt these are true."
Someone linked with they and
themselves?
To make this sentence even more sinful, it is known to the reader that the someone in question is a male. There is
no justification not to write:
"When you first meet someone and he
tells you stories about himself, you have no reason to doubt
these are true."
Right?
