Reflecting on Redundant Reflexives
Thursday Usage* Note
This CBC article provides a lovely example of redundant reflexism:
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to self-identify themselves as a transsexual.
Query to the CBC and to the police: would it be possible for a person to self-identify someone else as a transsexual?
If one is identifying one's self as anything-a transsexual, a dancer, a grammarian, a fuzzy blue muppet, whatever-one is self-identifying as that entity. Thus, we need write only
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to self-identify as a transsexual.
or,
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to identify themselves as a transsexual.
In this example, the first sentence is preferable, because it avoids the clumsy mismatch of numbers between the antecedent ("a person," singular) and the reflexive pronoun ("themselves," plural)**. When we're dealing with an easier antecedent, we may equally correctly choose either of the following constructions:
He self-medicated into a coma.
She taught herself to play the bouzouki
* This might actually be a Grammar Note rather than a Usage Note-correct use of parts of speech is properly placed within the realm of grammar; however, since we're talking about how to use a particular word ("self") correctly, and since I've started writing Usage Notes, I'm calling it usage, for now.
** This demonstrates my only problem with the singular they-how to correctly create a third-person indefinite (singular "they") reflexive pronoun. Most grammarians, even those firmly in the singular they camp, decry "themself" as the correct third-person singular reflexive pronoun, but "themselves" really does make it look like suddenly the antecedent has developed multiple selves. When editing, I prefer to re-cast the sentence to avoid the entire question, whenever possible. This doesn't resolve the grammatical question, but does make my life easier.
This CBC article provides a lovely example of redundant reflexism:
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to self-identify themselves as a transsexual.
Query to the CBC and to the police: would it be possible for a person to self-identify someone else as a transsexual?
If one is identifying one's self as anything-a transsexual, a dancer, a grammarian, a fuzzy blue muppet, whatever-one is self-identifying as that entity. Thus, we need write only
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to self-identify as a transsexual.
or,
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to identify themselves as a transsexual.
In this example, the first sentence is preferable, because it avoids the clumsy mismatch of numbers between the antecedent ("a person," singular) and the reflexive pronoun ("themselves," plural)**. When we're dealing with an easier antecedent, we may equally correctly choose either of the following constructions:
He self-medicated into a coma.
She taught herself to play the bouzouki
* This might actually be a Grammar Note rather than a Usage Note-correct use of parts of speech is properly placed within the realm of grammar; however, since we're talking about how to use a particular word ("self") correctly, and since I've started writing Usage Notes, I'm calling it usage, for now.
** This demonstrates my only problem with the singular they-how to correctly create a third-person indefinite (singular "they") reflexive pronoun. Most grammarians, even those firmly in the singular they camp, decry "themself" as the correct third-person singular reflexive pronoun, but "themselves" really does make it look like suddenly the antecedent has developed multiple selves. When editing, I prefer to re-cast the sentence to avoid the entire question, whenever possible. This doesn't resolve the grammatical question, but does make my life easier.