Paging Kevin Weller

Just had a call from Platy who has ineptly, and unsucessfully tried to
mail you, asking me to pass on a message that both himself and Lady
Nina are going to arrive later than planned, at least sometime after
7:30.

 

"himself"?! Aaaaarrrggghhh!

 

That made me check my grammar, actually it's perfectly legit to use it
as I did, it's a reflexive pronoun used following the noun to which it
refers within the same clause.

So there!

 

It is a reflexive pronoun but it's accusative rather than nominative
so you're wrong.

 

Oh poo.

 

Errr. No, I don't think so.

"... asking me to pass on a message that both himself and Lady
Nina are going to arrive later than planned, at least sometime after
7:30."

Looks pretty nominative to me. Being part of a subjunctive clause
doesn't change the case.

 

Almost 6pm.

 

Wouldn't that be "asking that I pass on a message"? I didn't do English
grammar, so I might be talking bollocks.

 

But `him[self]' is accusative, whether or not it is in a subordinate
[sic] clause. The OED gives `him' as `proper masculine pronoun of the
third person sing., dative and accusative'. You would not say `himself
is going to arrive ...'.

 

Unless you're Irish.

 

Feck off.

 

They should be ashamed of themselves.

 

Yes indeed. Re-reading your post I realise that it was open to
misinterpretation. It read like you were saying that the clause in
which it was used was accusative, whereas you were actually pointing
out that it should only be used in an accusative clause, which wasn't
the case here.

 

TBH I prefer 'Nina and him...", although as Mike will point out that's
also the accusative of the personal pronoun, so is technically not
correct.

 

I think the technically correct & best sounding option is "... the fat
**** & the dumpy burd are going to arrive...".

--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)

 

I'm going with this in future.

 

Bin delayd, Platy and Neena haz. Get ther layt when skai bulb gon out
and big moonz is abuv us. 'kay?

 

Of course. Well pointed out.

 

Jolly good. I'll right something proper in a min

 

It's easier

--


Nige,

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