yourself
when 'you' is correct. yourself is used, particularly in sales and retail in a bid to sound more formal, but it just grates on me.

"And if I can just have a signature from yourself..."

I may well be wrong, but I am 99.9% sure that 'yourself' is wrong and that
"And if I can just have a signature from you..."
is correct.

Edit: A bit of Googling¹, 'yourself' is used as the object when it is the same as the subject in the clause, i.e. 'you'.
You do it yourself

Thinking about it, substituting 'himself', it sounds plainly wrong to say:
"I just wanted a signature from himself". Sounds stupid, non?


1. no I don't care, Google is synonymous enough with searching the internet that it can be a verb
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 2:09, 10 replies)

i tink it's possibly an Oirish ting

(Moominator missing the good stuff cos' the swear filter is on, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 4:04, closed)

it's a deep seated
belief that multi-syllabic words are 'more fancy' than monosyllabic (this has a long history in English with vigourous debates on both sides). So, yourself is perceived as a fancy substitute for you. The fact that they have (or rather had) very different grammatical roles is lost on people.

It goes back to the Norman invasion, where Norman French had simpler phonotactics and thus needed more syllables in words. This was compounded by English losing its inflections, and then later the Biblical translations that suffered from the long held belief that 'English' was not good enough for the Word of God, so started borrowing lots of Latin and Greek and inventing a few more, and the grammar schools that taught Latin etc etc. Basically, a very long history of Latin and Romance languages being the languages of power and education.

For similar reasons, people are starting to increasingly use 'elevator' instead of 'lift'. And similar reason why autumn replaced fall.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 4:32, closed)

polysyllabic, even

( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Mon 12 Apr 2010, 10:13, closed)

I had a boss
who always used 'myself' instead of 'me' - whatever the context. As though using 'me' was somehow impolite.
(Spades is still digging on, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 11:28, closed)

my ex husband did this
not the only reason he's ex, but a damn good one
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 12:28, closed)

"Googling" is cromulent.
But the object of the sentence "you do it yourself" is "it".
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 15:06, closed)

I agree, but...
how do you feel about "your good self"
( laminasni isn't., Mon 12 Apr 2010, 9:26, closed)

Don't split the..
hang on, that's not right.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 12 Apr 2010, 9:41, closed)

like i want to stab whoever says it.

( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Mon 12 Apr 2010, 10:14, closed)

I work in Sales
and this is endemic. It drives me nuts.

Things like "We'll need a picture of yourself" especially.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Mon 12 Apr 2010, 10:13, closed)