me, myself and I

How do you react when you hear someone say, "Jack and myself had lunch"? Do you bite your tongue? Or do you want to hand the offender your favourite grammar book? This is a pet peeve for many of us, but is it non-standard English?

Standard use

There are two correct ways to use the pronoun myself:

To reflect the action back to I, me or my:

• I hurt myself skydiving.
• The instructor helped me strap myself into the parachute.
• My plan was to hurl myself out of a plane once a week.

To emphasize the subject I:

• I will build the tree house myself.
• I myself have no objections.

Non-standard use

When writing, avoid using myself to replace I or me as subject or object of a verb:

• Greg, Tim and I (not myself) walked home.
• Meg let Jan and me (not myself) use her computer.
• I (not Me myself, I) like these shoes a lot.

In preparing this linguistic reminder, we consulted the following sources:

The Gregg Reference Manual (2009)
Guide to Canadian English Usage (2007)
Practical English Usage (2005)
The Writer's Digest Grammar Desk Reference (2005)