>>>>Use of these is getting worse. Some examples, not from real life, but typical of what I've experienced/heard a lot lately:
>>>>
>>>>"Hi Mr McDonnell. I was wondering if our offer has reached yourself yet."
>>>>"Could you manage to make payment to ourselves by the end of the week."
>>>>"We're sending the order to yourselves direct."
>>>>"There's just myself and yourself here."
>>>
>>>Don't you just love those? In fact, a couple of my friends were talking to myself about this just the other day. ;)
>>
>>The moronic rule of thumb would appear to be "if the sentence requires a pronoun, replace it with one of those pronouns with 'self/selves' on the end"
>
>Yeah, drives me nuts, too. Here's what I have about this on my website (
http://www.tomorrowssolutionsllc.com/writingtips.htm):
>
>Don't abuse the "self" words. These words ("myself," "yourself," etc.) belong in a sentence only if the corresponding pronoun has already appeared. For example, this is correct:
>
>"I'll take care of it myself."
>
>But this is wrong:
>
>"He had a meeting with John and myself."
>
>That should be:
>
>"He had a meeting with John and me."
>
Myself agrees with yourself. (Back to dumb jokes and off the heavy topics).