hypercorrection - ESL text: "I notice similarities between myself and . . . ": Acceptable use of reflexive pronoun?


In an ESL class, a student asked a difficult question about the use of “myself” in the following sentence:



I notice similarities between myself and other people more than differences.



(Speak Out, Upper Intermediate, p. 13, Exercise 11C, Pearson Longman, 2011)


She said that she had been taught in Japan that it should “me” here. And, as a native speaker, I also feel it should be “me,” but then, I am not an ESL expert like the people at Pearson Longman.


To me, the sentence seems to not be a case of an actual reflexive pronoun, such as “I see myself in the mirror,” but to border on hypercorrection such as “come have a drink with my husband and myself.”


However, this structure, whether or not hypercorrection, does seem do have many users. Here are some Google hit numbers.



"similarities between me and"



45K



"similarities between myself and"



17K


What explanation can I provide? Are both her previously learned rules and my native intuition incorrect? Or is something odd about the sentence from Pearson Longman? Or are all of these views correct?



Answer



A reasonable approach to answering your question is to substitute both the regular and reflexive forms of other pronouns in the specimen sentence to see if a pattern of acceptability emerges:



One notices similarities between oneself and other people more than differences.


*One notices similarities between one and other people more than differences.





She notices similarities between herself and other people more than differences.


*She notices similarities between her and other people more than differences.





It notices similarities between itself and other [entities] more than differences.


*It notices similarities between it and other [entities] more than differences.





We notice similarities between ourselves and other people more than differences.


*We notice similarities between us and other people more than differences.





You notice similarities between yourself and other people more than differences.


*You notice similarities between you and other people more than differences.





They notice similarities between themselves and other people more than differences.


*They notice similarities between them and other people more than differences.



In all these cases, the reflexive form of the pronoun (which in this kind of construction I think could more accurately be described as the emphatic form) strikes me as sounding much more natural than the non-emphatic form, particularly in the case of 'oneself/one'.


By analogy, 'myself' is preferable to 'me' (and it also intuitively sounds more natural to my ear).


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