interesting philosophical question

[alexseanchai]

First person reflexive/intensive: 'myself', constructed by adding '-self' to the first person possessive 'my'.

Second person reflexive/intensive: 'yourself', constructed similarly, and 'yourselves', constructed similarly except pluralizing the suffix.

Third person reflexive/intensive: 'himself', constructed by adding '-self' to the third person object 'him'. Also 'themselves' in the plural, constructed similarly except pluralizing the suffix. However, 'herself' may be constructed by adding '-self' to either the third person possessive or the third person object: both are 'her' so it's hard to tell.

So, given the ambiguity of 'her' in 'herself' and the definite possessiveness of 'my' and 'your' in 'myself' and 'yourself', is it perhaps more appropriate, when using 'they' in the singular, to construct the reflexive/intensive pronoun as 'theirself' than 'themself'? I find 'themself' sounds right, but.

(why yes I am procrastinating something important)

Comments

[redsixwing]

Hm. I tend to use 'theirself' spoken just because I like the slight change in the vowel sound ('them' and 'self' use the same e, in my dialect).

Either or, I suppose. ^^

[alexseanchai]

Nod! :)

usage natter before breakfast

[redbird]

I think I've been using "themself," but I'm still at the point where both forms seem a little odd, I think because of that ambiguity. It's easy to say "I talked to Alex, and they said" or "Rush is very busy right now, in part because they're going to be a father" but the language's long history of singular "they" doesn't seem to have settled on a separate reflexive. "Themself" is closer to what would be used for plural "they", as in "sisters are doing it for themselves" not "for theirselves."

For what it's worth (not much, imho) Firefox marks "theirselves" and "theirself" as errors but is happy with "themself."

Re: usage natter before breakfast

[alexseanchai]

Yeah, you'd think with better than four hundred years of using a thing, it would have more clearly understood patterns of usage.

Oh, is that Firefox doing that? I thought I'd told its spellcheck 'themself' is okay but hadn't done so for 'theirself'. Interesting datum.