Once again, I’ve got a question for you dear readers. As I so regularly do in my spare time instead of cultivating rewarding interpersonal relationships, I was reading a piece on grammatical/punctuation errors, by Toni Bowers. Of course, being quarrelsome, I disagreed with half of her six points. I could agree with three points in the article: don’t confuse me and I, don’t confuse its and it’s, don’t confuse their, they’re, and there. But there’s nothing wrong with an apostrophe after an acronym/initialism, so CD’s is fine. Furthermore, periods are fine within quotation marks if you’re British or prefer the British style — and if you really care about which goes inside the other and you’re not editing a text that has to conform with a specific style guide, you need to re-analyze your priorities. And the last point the great debate of standard accusative pronouns (me, you, them) versus reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, themselves). I wouldn’t necessarily say I disagree with her point, but that’s because I am not sure how I feel about her example sentence. So I figured I’d ask the smartest (and least susceptible to flattery) folks on the internet: how do the following two sentences compare for you?
(1a) I have enough salsa for you and myself.
(1b) I have enough salsa for you and me.
Are both acceptable? Neither? Only one? And how do they compare to these two sentences?
(2a) I have enough salsa for myself.
(2b) I have enough salsa for me.
And lastly, how do they compare to these four sentences?
(3a) Troy has enough salsa for you and himself.
(3b) Troy has enough salsa for you and him. (Assuming him refers to Troy)
Please leave a comment if you have any opinions on the matter. If you can, give a ranking of these sentences as well. Next week we’ll look at your thoughts and compare them to the expectations of prescriptivists and syntacticians. Oooh, I’m giddy with excitement!
Motivated Grammar 
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October 1, 2009 at 11:11 am
Dawnstorm
Quick intuitive response:
1a) + 1b) I’d accept both
2a) Yes, 2b) No
3a) Yes 3b) No
Which is interesting. (I wonder if the difference in 1b and 3b has anything to do with ambiguity, since “me” can only ever have one referent – the speaker?)
October 1, 2009 at 11:11 am
John Roth
Hm. Neither 1a nor 1b, unless the context indicated that there were more than two people who might want salsa. Then 1b, definitely. If there were only two people, I’d use us.
2a definitely.
3a would be acceptable if someone else was saying it. I’d say “for the two of you” or “both of you.” The other two statements seem to have vanished.
John Roth
October 1, 2009 at 11:18 am
Talkendo
1) both are acceptable, but less so than “the two of us” or just “us”
2) I think they’re interchangable, 2b) is a more emphatic construction
3a) more than 3b), but I agree more with “both of you”
October 1, 2009 at 11:29 am
Rob Simmons
I would probably speak or write the B variant in all cases, but “Troy has only enough salsa for him” sounds wrong so I probably would edit 3B to 3A if I noticed based on the “eliminate ‘you and’ and see if the sentence still sounds right” rule.
October 1, 2009 at 11:39 am
Yvonne Rathbone
I think we’re seeing a shift toward using the reflexive in place of the d.o. in a lot of cases. The examples you cite are toward the “acceptible” range of the spectrum. There is at least some reflexion going on. I have also heard utterances and read texts along the lines of:
She’s going to the dance with Jim and myself.
Here there is nothing to “reflex” to. I’ve run this type of example by several people in their twenties. Most do not hear this as ungrammatical. Personally, I think this is an overcorrection because “Jim and me” no longer sounds correct, a side-effect of correcting “me” used as subject.
I think the shift is on! Language change before our very eyes!
October 1, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Maintainer
Speaking soley for myself I’d go with: 1b, 2a, 3b.
But that’s just me.
October 1, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Maintainer
Yvonne, it’s not only the young folk that are over correcting.
I blame NPR. I constantly cringe at hearing commentators in their forties say shit like she joined myself at the dinner party.
October 1, 2009 at 12:39 pm
S Onosson
1: a and b are both acceptable, but I would likely use and prefer b in a wider range of contexts.
2: a is definitely better than b, which is less acceptable for me (for myself? lol!)
3: both are good, I might slightly prefer b over a.
October 1, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Maintainer
I just came across a Doc Sarles Weblog post which I’m not sure how to feel about.
“Interesting volley between Cliff Gerrish and myself, centered on the topic of silos vs. pipes…”
October 1, 2009 at 1:04 pm
LaForge
in case you haven’t yet seen this month’s Chicago Manual Q&A, I wanted to show you what was said on the subject of apostrophes:
Q. Why do you continue to support the nonpossessive apostrophe, as in CD’s, MBA’s? It serves no function whatsoever.
A. Actually, Chicago generally omits the apostrophe in the plurals of initialisms, while acknowledging its usefulness in some cases, such as to distinguish As from A’s. (Not that punctuation is necessarily logical, you know; sometimes it is simply based on convention.)
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/new/new_questions01.html
October 1, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Gabe
John Roth/Talkendo/others: I feel sheepish admitting this, but it didn’t even occur to me that “us” would be better than either “you and me” or “you and myself” in (1). Quick follow-up question: Would you prefer “us” or “ourselves” there?
Rob: Hey, good to see you! How’s Pittsburgh? Did you avoid all the G-20 arrests hullabaloo, or have they set up wi-fi in the County Jail?
October 1, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Karen
I think ALL of the sentences are “acceptable” but would probably prefer one or the other depending on context.
E.g., May I have some of your salsa?
Yes. I have enough salsa for you and myself.
E.g., Did you bring enough salsa?
Yes. I have enough salsa for you and me.
I think that 1a, 1b, 2b, 3a, and 3b all sound unnatural, though. I’d prefer: I have enough salsa for both of us or Troy has enough salsa for both of you. Furthermore, if him refers to Troy, then 3b just sounds ugly (but not Wrong) to me.
October 2, 2009 at 10:06 am
goofy
The only one I don’t like is 3a.
October 2, 2009 at 4:41 pm
mlpace343
To my untrained ears, The sentences with the reflexive nouns sound “wrong.” I go with 1b, 2b, and 3b. And if the salsa helps Troy’s knee, I’d get it for him myself.
October 2, 2009 at 6:45 pm
John Roth
Gabe: us, definitely. I’d accept ourselves, but wouldn’t use it. But then I’m definitely in the older generation: I’m 66.
John Roth
October 3, 2009 at 6:30 pm
kywai
I don’t like (1a) or (1b) much, but I’d say (1b) is a bit better. If you added another “for”, both would be fine (e.g. “for you and for myself/me”).
(2a) is grammatical for me only under the reading “I have enough salsa for myself (and not for anyone else)”, it would not be ok if you were trying to say the amount of salsa you have is satisfactory for this meal. (2b) is just strange.
(3a) is fine if a bit awkward, but (3b) is just plain weird. Again, adding another “for” to these sentences would help a lot, but (3b) would still be strange.
From best to worst: 2a, 1b, 3a, 1a, 2b, 3a
October 4, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Bill S.
I don’t think I’d use any of the reflexive versions, with the possible exception of 2b (at least, that one doesn’t jump out at me quite as much). The other reflexives sound “wrong,” although I hear that kind of thing all the time (I’m trying to clamp down on my geezer reflex).
Using extra reflexives doesn’t strike me as much of an issue in itself (ah, self-invalidation!), but I’ve noticed that it sometimes goes along with what I’d call “bureau-babble” (“Bob and myself are prioritizing mission-orientated goals to enhance vertical functionality”). I’ll even use prescriptivism if it lets me derail a bureaucrat in full gassy/pompous mode.
October 4, 2009 at 10:02 pm
goofy
for what it’s worth, reflexive pronouns without same-clause antecedents aren’t a new thing. It goes back at least 200 years.
…no one would feel more gratified by the chance of obtaining his observations on a work than myself – Lord Byron, letter, 1811
October 5, 2009 at 4:23 am
michael
they’re all acceptable to me. though I do have some reservations about 1a –which I find odd, since 2a is totally fine.
October 5, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Daniel
I probably wouldn’t actually utter any of these sentences, except perhaps for 2a. Sentences 1 and 3 would likely be reworded as “[I/Troy] [have/has] enough salsa for both of [us/you].”
1a and 3a sound a little off because of the combination of an objective pronoun and a reflexive, but I wouldn’t call them “unacceptable”; they simply scan a bit oddly.
1b sounds perfectly fine.
3b scans fine, but the ambiguity of who “him” refers to is bothersome on a different level.
In terms of ranking them, I’d probably go with 2a, 2b, 1b, 3b, 3a, 1a
October 7, 2009 at 12:51 pm
cait
1a, 1b, 2a, 2b and 3a are fine. 3b’s ambiguity doesn’t jive with me.
October 8, 2009 at 8:55 am
iakon
In 1a and 2a the use of ‘myself’ instead of ‘me’ is pretentious because it gives unnecessary emphasis.
In 3a the use of ‘himself’ is necessary to avoid the ambiguity (that you point out) of ‘him’.
October 12, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Abram
(1a) I have enough salsa for you and myself.
(1b) I have enough salsa for you and me.
Are both acceptable? Neither? Only one? And how do they compare to these two sentences?
(2a) I have enough salsa for myself.
(2b) I have enough salsa for me.
And lastly, how do they compare to these four sentences?
(3a) Troy has enough salsa for you and himself.
(3b) Troy has enough salsa for you and him. (Assuming him refers to Troy)
While I wouldn’t say 1a is wrong, I do think 1b is grammatically more sound and has a better ring to it as well — ‘you’ and ‘me’ and ‘yourself’ and ‘myself’ are sets. There is no need for the reflexive ‘myself’. ‘You’ and ‘me’ belong to the same case (accusative or, in modern English, objective).
In the second set, I’d vote for 2a. Here the reflexive fits perfectly, as the speaker is the object.
In the third set, I would definitely go for 3a, as it avoids the ambiguity that prompted your parenthetical reference after 3b.
October 16, 2009 at 8:34 am
Steve Vogel
I believe “b” is much preferred in all three examples.
November 19, 2009 at 12:22 am
John Cowan
Where precision is required, only the British style will do. Thus, for example, the instruction “In order to get the vi editor to delete a line, type the command ‘dd’.” must be punctuated as shown, because “… type the command ‘dd.'” might cause someone to type d-d-dot, which deletes two lines. Technical prose, therefore, tends to adhere to the British style unless forcibly changed by an American editor who doesn’t know better.