Myself am writing to yourself about pronouns and myself have already made three mistakes in this letter.
One day a woman called Joan was talking to me about pronouns.
Herself, sorry, she, has never been a teacher but she can very usefully pass on what she was taught.
Her teacher told her class that people often run into trouble with pronouns when they get two or more people in a sentence.
So someone who wants to tell you: “I got the vaccination” and “My husband got the vaccination” simply needs to say “My husband and I got the vaccination”.
The “I” doesn’t suddenly turn into “myself” when the husband entered the sentence, although it did on the television news.
I was a bit cross to find, online, a person with an ESOL qualification, who said that whether we say “John and I” or “John and me” is largely a matter of choice. Is it heck. It’s a matter of grammar and you simply follow Joan’s teacher’s rule.
I am using the Queen for three examples.
When she wanted to say: “I am pleased to be here” and “Prince Philip is pleased to be here” she would have said: “Prince Philip and I are pleased to be here”.
When she wanted to say: “Thank you for the welcome given to me” and “Thank you for the welcome given to Prince Philip”, she would have said: “Thank you for the welcome given to me and Prince Philip”. She speaks the Queen’s English correctly.
If she wants to say: “I’m popping round to Windsor chippie for a pensioner’s portion for myself” and “I’m popping round to Windsor chippie for a pensioner’s portion for Sophie”, I have no doubt that she would say, in an absolutely correct way, “I’m popping round to Windsor chippie for pensioner portions for myself and Sophie”.
If I weren’t over 300 words I’d say that I would consider “myself and Sophie” or “Sophie and myself” to be equally correct. The point is that the grammar is correct. Yes, I did have my grammar corrected when I was a child, and when I was an adult!
Frances Richardson
Surfleet
