This strikes me as an insightful theory of why a new (and unwelcome by grammar pedants) usage of "yourself" has insinuated its way into the language as a way of adding courteous inflection to "you". - ThreadSky

rafaelbehr.bsky.social • 108 days ago

This strikes me as an insightful theory of why a new (and unwelcome by grammar pedants) usage of "yourself" has insinuated its way into the language as a way of adding courteous inflection to "you".

Reposted from Ned Hartley

I liked the person on here who said that we don’t have the French “vous” and it fills that gap

Comments

midnightsheep.bsky.social•108 days ago

Grammar pedants† would do well to sit themselves down and admire the sight of language in flux. It's like looking into a telescope at the birth of a star - something you thought was permanent, but isn't.

† I'm a recovering pedant, having escaped the cult of my upbringing. Some usages still hurt.

midnightsheep.bsky.social•108 days ago

I would like to add: debating this twenty years ago with my father, I'd probably have used a glacier in my analogy. Strangely enough, I am no longer comfortable doing that.

rafaelbehr.bsky.social•108 days ago

This is very much my feeling. I accept that language evolves but still flinch at some things - usually when I feel a subtle but useful distinction is being lost. eg refute/reject.

midnightsheep.bsky.social•108 days ago

Cf: imply/infer. That's exactly where I stand too. There's a category difference between things that make me twinge, and those I feel represent a real - and unnecessary - loss.

For the rest, I try to observe, and relax. We can overexaggerate so easily as normalcy eats up normality. Grrrr.

samproctor.bsky.social•108 days ago

Could you be more pacific? 🫢

slideman.bsky.social•108 days ago

The issue is stylistic, not grammatical. Strange that a simple “you” should come to be seen as blunt (or even aggressive). I prefer just to say “you” without being blunt or aggressive. #ItAintWhatYouSayItsTheWayThatYouSayIt

jjbillyd.bsky.social•108 days ago

Also, these reflexive pronouns do something more than "vous" - they put in an indirectness. See how "myself" is used by people in thankless customer service jobs.

rafaelbehr.bsky.social•108 days ago

Yes, a distancing/formal first person, the "vous" form of "I".

brucehayward.bsky.social•108 days ago

Hopefully, we can soon look forward to "Myself has voted for yourself".

jjbillyd.bsky.social•108 days ago

Polish has a T/V/S distinction - the V form is plural (and - with cultural complication - can work as formal singular). But the standard polite usage is third person (roughly "is [my] lord/lady well?")
If "yourself" develops into a new V form, I wonder if it will be with full third-person grammar.

alanswallow.bsky.social•108 days ago

As a possible grammar pedant I find it unwelcome and unnecessary - I think, perhaps wrongly, the French vous is “you”, with the tu form “thee” having dropped from most regions in the uk. But perhaps not all regions?

alisonauciel.bsky.social•108 days ago

*coughs in Scots* it’s only new in some places.

leithmotive.bsky.social•108 days ago

As in gau'un yersel?

alisonauciel.bsky.social•108 days ago

Aye, but have also been greeted by old ladies with an “oh it’s yourself” when they know you but can’t remember your name.

timwrite.net•108 days ago

Ah, gwan yourself. Sure, you've the linguistic bug upon you.

garethmedwards.bsky.social•108 days ago

It’s what was originally behind “usted” in Spanish - a contraction of “vuestra merced” - “your mercy”.

jeremybate.bsky.social•108 days ago

Possibly a contraction of the now somewhat archaic "your goodself"?

scosthrop.bsky.social•108 days ago

The receptionist at the dentist I went to as a child always addressed my mother as "your goodself". Mum struggled to contain her giggles, lovely memory.

jeremybate.bsky.social•108 days ago

A firm of solicitors once wrote to me referring to themselves as "our goodselves" !

rafaelbehr.bsky.social•108 days ago

bobbydunnett.bsky.social•108 days ago

It's plausible, but why do people also use myself? As in, "if you have any questions, do ask myself".

nanasue199.bsky.social•108 days ago

It was very noticeable to me how many of the younger players at the Round Table in Traitors used “yourself” when voting to banish someone.

stuarthedges.bsky.social•108 days ago

John Finnemore sends it up beautifully in Cabin Pressure (first aired 2008 according to a quick Google).

andrewharbison1.bsky.social•106 days ago

I think it’s Hiberno-English. A translation of the Irish Tú Féin - “you yourself” or “you specifically”. It’s a way of politely personalising a question or statement.
Sinn Féin is often mistranslated as “Ourselves Alone”, when it actually means “we ourselves” - basically an emphatic “us”.

uilliammac.bsky.social•105 days ago

Yourself/herself and other reflexive pronouns are very common usage here and in parts of Scotland where Scottish Gaelic is or was spoken. Also Newfoundland where Irish and Scottish Gaelic survive. I would say "Myself and Cara are away off into Derry" rather than "Cara and I are going to Derry"

conmachiavel.bsky.social•105 days ago

“Cara and I” sounds terribly posh to my decrepit Irish ears.

Though that’s the phrasing I’d use now after more than two decades in Blighty.

uilliammac.bsky.social•105 days ago

My partner is here 10 years from England and it's only in the last couple of years that I've noticed she is starting to construct sentences differently when speaking as well as picking up a variety of phrases.

conmachiavel.bsky.social•105 days ago

Likewise - three years back in Ireland and my very 🇬🇧 other half is starting to construct sentences in Hiberno-English without realising it. I’m not pointing this out to her as if I do, her development in this area will stop!

thatkat.bsky.social•108 days ago

Isn’t you actually our version of vous already? The informal thou having fallen out of use because we were being so polite

rafaelbehr.bsky.social•108 days ago

Yes. You is vous. I've always been intrigued to know why it beat thee/thou to become standard usage. Could be culture of deference, could just be easier to say and abbreviate in conjunction with other words.

richardfbourke.bsky.social•108 days ago

the culture of deference, back in the 17th century, was to use "you" to social superiors, who would use "thou/thee" to inferiors (I'm sure you know that already). The lack of reciprocity caused a lot of resentment, resulting in eg: Quakers insisting on "thee" for everyone.

greyskiesthinking.bsky.social•108 days ago

It may be the opposite of deference? By universalising vous-forms (outside of close personal relations) you wind up with a formal mode of address that is egalitarian without being familiar.

mdbaccardax.bsky.social•108 days ago

“Yourself” is a subject pronoun I hear often in Ireland, where it can be used as a light version of “vous”, when speaking to someone you don’t know very well: (what do you do yourself, then?)

karlburke.bsky.social•108 days ago

Yes, it’s in common usage here, then again so is “ye”, particularly in the West.

georgepoles.bsky.social•108 days ago

It would've been much more fun to go back to thee/thou

torsionham.bsky.social•108 days ago

I've heard that "thee" was the equivalent of "tu" and actually "you" was the equivalent of "vous"

georgepoles.bsky.social•108 days ago

That’s 100% true. And, of course, thee/thouing carried on in e.g. Yorkshire dialect well into living memory.

torsionham.bsky.social•108 days ago

It seems to me to be more of an attempt at the passive voice

gregwa.bsky.social•108 days ago

wjflywheel.bsky.social•108 days ago

Grammar pedants are peculiar because they fundamentally don’t understand the thing they claim to be protecting. Like Trump claiming to be the protector of women whether they like it or not.

aselectfew.bsky.social•108 days ago

When working online through chatrooms and other much more official environments I still can't get over those who use "your" instead of "you're" and when did "thank you" become "thankyou". It makes me cringe every time I see them.

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