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Health & Fitness

The Discovery of the Subjunctive Pronoun

The Discovery of the Subjunctive Pronoun 
  -Reflexives Uses as Depersonalizers-       

Sometimes, when a language tolerates the misuse of its mechanics, it causes the "misused phrase" to take on a new meaning, even though it may be subtle. This is the case of English, and serves to attest to the vigor of the English language and its ability to incorporate change and still remain virile.       

For instance, when a person misuses the reflexive pronoun "yourself" instead of "you," there are often very subtle connotations that are not always obvious.  Example: "This was news to Mary and myself." When this sentence is spoken by someone who feels inferior to the other person, or by someone with uncertain social status (perhaps a child) to an authority figure, the usage seems ungrammatical, but it is not necessarily; it can be conveying a different meaning.       

In conversation, the use or misuse of "yourself" in the place of "you" can serve as a depersonalizer. The depersonalization can be used as a sign of deference to a person of perceived higher social status or authority, or, it may be a not-necessarily-conscious effort to depersonalize the conversation to keep the other person at a distance.  Even media professionals use this construction:  Happy birthday from Mary and myself. If anyone knows the correct usage, it should be the professional communicators. Yet, some of them continually use this construction in public, which I believe is to symbolize a lack of intimacy with the audience or the other conversationalists. This would be somewhat analogous to the use of the familiar vs the polite forms in some languages in order to signal intimacy and sometimes status.       

The word polite brings to mind a that-says-it-all definition of etiquette that includes the concept of depersonalization: "Manners," or etiquette, is a devise to keep fools at a distance."       

"Yourself" and "myself" (and even "kind of") can be used as a subjunctive form for the intimidated (my label) - particularly the very young or the less socially dominant. Such as when a parent is seeking information about a broken window and a child replies, "George and myself did it."  The use or apparent misuse of myself in American English has sometimes come to mean a depersonalized "I." In this child's admission, the seemingly ungrammatical use of "myself" (the depersonalized "I") instead of "I," seems to distinguish the extremes between outright admission of guilt and the acceptance of responsibility ("George and I did it"); the oblique reference and the point of the finger at a depersonalized, intangible third-party entity that the child refers to as "myself."  "Myself" becomes the shadow of "I"; it has mental form but no physical substance.       

Adults also use "myself" (e.g., "it was completed by Harry and myself” instead of "me") in order to depersonalize the conversation; "myself" is a more distant out-of-body entity than the more inward and intimate "me."     

 The subjunctive pronoun concept can also be extended to the misuse of "yourself." For example, when a person has an uncertain self-image or social status, or lacks self confidence, he may say, "I hope Mary and yourself enjoy your vacation." The body language of condescension or patronization often serves to signal that "yourself" is being used as a *subjunctive pronoun.

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