Me, Myself and I
Barack Obama must have felt a flush of exhiliration when he stepped onto the stage in Chicago to give his first news conference as president-elect. His first words when he saw the roomful of reporters were “Oh, wow.” Aside from his comment about Nancy Reagan’s seances, he didn’t stumble, at least not politically.
But he did cause me to wince a couple of times when he mixed up his pronouns.
Here’s how Obama responded when he was asked about a planned meeting with President Bush:
“Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush. We are gratified by the invitation.”
“Michelle and I“? Wrong. It should have been “Michelle and me.”
Quick review:
- I is a subject pronoun (Michelle and I are going to the White House).
- Me is an object pronoun (President Bush invited Michelle and me to the White House).
Obama’s mistake is all too common. People are always mixing up their pronouns, especially in spoken language. Obama never would have said “President Bush invited I to meet him….”Yet he stumbled over the compound object when he included Michelle.
Responding to the same question, Obama went on the say, “I’m sure that in addition to a tour of the White House, there is going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the president.”
“Between myself and the president”? Poor choice.
In the first place, don’t use a reflexive pronoun like myself by itself. A reflexive pronoun needs a partner in the form of a noun or other pronoun: Despite the recession, I’m going to treat myself to a new pair of shoes.
Second, don’t use myself in place of I or me. There’s nothing immodest about correctly using the pronouns I and me. But there’s nothing modest–in fact, there’s something peculiar–about using myself as a substitute for I or me.
And remember mom’s admonishment to put the other person first? In this case, that would have been the right thing to do. Obama should have said, “…there’s going to be a substantive conversation between the president and me.”