Reflexives

I haven’t mentioned this in a while, maybe never: A certain reflexive pronoun is usually a pretentiousism. That word is myself.

Reflexive pronouns are for when you already mentioned the word earlier in the sentence, such as

We did it ourselves.
I baked the cake myself.
You can make your bed yourself.

About the only one people get wrong is “myself.” We don’t say, “Yourself can make the bed.” Here’s an example of how we do it wrong:

Remember Heathkits? The better part of 50 years ago the company had a store here in Maryland, which merited many pilgrimages from myself and my nerdy friends.

http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem365.html

Sorry, he didn’t mention himself earlier in the sentence, so the sentence should be:

The better part of 50 years ago the company had a store here in Maryland, which merited many pilgrimages from meand my nerdy friends.

Don’t you be pretentious!