{"id":180,"date":"2008-03-24T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2008-03-24T18:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/sir-for-your-hurts-myself-will-be-your-surgeon\/"},"modified":"2015-06-24T07:48:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T13:48:41","slug":"sir-for-your-hurts-myself-will-be-your-surgeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/03\/sir-for-your-hurts-myself-will-be-your-surgeon\/","title":{"rendered":"“Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon: …”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I heard this during an excellent performance of Othello<\/em> over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Problem:<\/strong>
\nI’m not sure about William Shakespeare’s time, but “myself” by today’s standard is not<\/em> the right pronoun for this sentence.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\nAt the risk of treading sacred ground, I must say that I had to wince when I heard “myself will be your surgeon” in the Alley Theatre’s excellent production of Shakespeare’s Othello<\/em> over the weekend.<\/p>\n

I’m not blaming the Alley production company. According to Scribd, the actor who played the part of Othello — David Rainey — said it exactly according to the script.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Shakespeare wrote this line as shorthand for “Sir, for your hurts, I<\/em> myself will be your surgeon: …” and simply left out the nominative singular pronoun “I” because it was the style of the time.<\/p>\n

It’s correct to follow “I” with “myself” when one wants to emphasize the “I” (ditto for “you” followed by “yourself”, “he” followed by “himself”, etc.).<\/p>\n

In other words, one can emphasize a nominative pronoun by immediately following it with its counterpart reflexive pronoun (e.g., “I myself” or “he himself”).<\/p>\n

However, it’s incorrect to use a reflexive pronoun as a substitute<\/em> for its counterpart nominative pronoun.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong>
\n“Sir, for your hurts, I will be your surgeon.” or “Sir, for your hurts, I myself will be your surgeon.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I heard this during an excellent performance of Othello over the weekend. Problem: I’m not sure about William Shakespeare’s time, but “myself” by today’s standard is not the right pronoun for this sentence. 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