Most of us want to make a good impression when we write and speak. The sad fact is that too many people have fallen into a grammatical quagmire by incorrectly using “me,” “myself,” and “I.”
Each of those three words has a specific, non-overlapping purpose.
“Me” is a singular personal pronoun used as an object in a sentence. For example:
“He gave additional work to me.” “Penny asked me to finish the assignment.”
“Myself” is a reflexive pronoun used in conjunction with “I” when describing something about yourself. For example, “I, myself, had to retake the test several times.” “I’m going to push myself to complete the run by 3 p.m.”
“I” is a first-person singular pronoun used as a subject within a sentence. For example:
“I completed the task.” “You, Elizabeth and I scored the highest.”
Here are some recent examples that I’ve seen, followed by a suggested correct construction. To avoid embarrassing anyone, I’ve changed names and other identifying nouns.
WRONG: “Please email myself, Mary and Carol a profile picture of yourself to help us promote you and the program.”
CORRECTION: “Please email me, Mary and Carol a profile picture….” It helps to read the sentence without the other names. It wouldn’t sound correct to write, “Please email myself a profile picture.”
WRONG: “Myself and our former editor could not see the little twerp succeeding in the NFL.”
CORRECTION: “I and our former editor could not see the little twerp….”
WRONG: “Between you and I, that last call was terrible!”
CORRECTION: “Between you and me, that last call was terrible!”
WRONG: “She sent the email to Sue and myself.”
CORRECTION: “She sent the email to Sue and me.”
