Business Writing

Me, Myself and I

My, myself and I are three words that native speakers confuse regularly. More and more people seem to be saying things like:

“Erica and myself wrote the report and submitted it last week.”

This is just WRONG. Others say:

“Erica and me wrote the report and submitted it last week.”

This is WRONG too. If you leave Erica out of the sentence, you would say:

“I wrote the report and submitted it last week.”

So if you are doing something with someone else, and wondering which word to use, whether it should be myself, me or I, leave the other person out of the sentence and think about what you would say. If you and Erica wrote a report and you want to talk about it, avoid using the word “myself”. The correct version is:

“Erica and I wrote the report and submitted it last week.”

Here’s another example. If you want to talk about going to a new restaurant for dinner with Jim, think about it. If you were going by yourself you would say “I am going to dinner at the new restaurant”. Now just add Jim to the sentence and “Jim and I are going to dinner at the new restaurant.”

Remember “I” is the first person, singular subject pronoun. “Me” is the first person singular object pronoun.

“Myself” is the first person, singular, reflexive pronoun. I haven’t written about these before but we use a reflexive pronoun as a direct object when the object is the same as the subject of the verb. Here’s an example:

I am teaching myself to write clear, concise reports.

Rubriky