C.A.E.: Business

Crimes Against English is a semi-occasional feature of Hopelessly Eclectic. I use these posts to shame alleged native English–speakers into stopping the senseless abuse of a language that's just minding its own business, after all. For more information about C.A.E. philosophy, see http://hopelesslyeclectic.blogspot.com/2007/01/crimes-against-english.html.

In today's issue, we continue the riveting discussion about Talking Like a Manager. As described in our last installment, verbing is your most important tool to become, well, a tool. Skilling up for verbing takes time, though. (Smooth, huh? I dare you to try it out in your next staff meeting.) In the meantime, the average guy or gal seeking to become the Alpha Suit shouldn't be standing still. Enter the gratuitous reflexive.

You remember the reflexive form from junior high English, right. You use "self" with the appropriate pronoun because you are doing something to or about yourself. (Or somebody is doing something to or about him/herself.) For example:

I have nobody to blame but myself for getting myself in trouble when I recommended to my teacher that she go perform an impossible act on herself.

Pretty straightforward, right? Sure, if you're not Management Material. If you want to fast-track yourself to Alpha Suithood, you really need to flout the rules of English. You can appear more refined and important if you gratuitously tack "self" onto random first-person pronouns. Like so:

Please familiarize yourselves with the proposed new policies. I'd like to socialize the changes before productioning them. If you should have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask Raymondo or myself.

I know I used a lot of advanced techniques in that last example. You may not be ready to integrate them into your Alpha Suit skill track yet, but I believe that immersion is the best way to learn.

In any case, note the gratuitous use of "myself," when non-Alpha Suit types would stick with the technically-correct "me." (Yes, I know that nobody can ask myself or do anything else to myself except me, but we're talking about business actualization, not grammar.)

Note that nobody but an actual Alpha Suit could get away with the following without inspiring quizzical looks and/or eye rolls:

This report was prepared by myself over the past months.

Don't try it unless you're an Alpha Suit... even if you hear an Alpha Suit say it. It is much too powerful magic for Lesser Suits. Your use of the gratuitous reflexive needs to be more subtle, usually dragging in at least one other person for camouflage. But fear not—through careful planning, you too can use this highly effective tool. Here are some examples to send you on your way. Happy selfing:

Everybody but Tami and myself were made aware of the changes to this policy. Can you help me understand why I wasn't looped on this?

I'm not convinced this project would have gone forward, had anybody but myself been the lead.

Myself, I wouldn't have made that choice.

When somebody has a chance, could you fill in Pierre and myself?

The meeting was run by the lead team and myself.

Q: Who built that web page? A: Actually, myself.