Contents -SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.

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he.” The first means “I love you more than (I love) him”; the second, “I love you more than he (loves you).” In the first him does not refer to I, which is nominative, but to you, which is objective, and so it is properly objective also. But the American, of course, uses him even when the preceding noun is in the nominative, save only when another verb follows the pronoun. Thus, he says, “I love you better than him,” but “I love you better than he does.”

In the matter of the reflexive pronouns the American vulgate exhibits forms which plainly show that it is the spirit of the language to regard self, not as an adjective, which it is historically, but as a noun. This confusion goes back to Anglo-Saxon days; it originated at a time when both the adjectives and the nouns were losing their old inflections. Such forms as Petrussylf (=Peter’s self), Cristsylf (=Christ’s self) and Icsylf (=I, self) then came into use, and along with them came combinations of self and the genitive, still surviving in hisself and theirselves (or theirself). Down to the sixteenth century these forms remained in perfectly good usage. “Each for hisself,” for example, was written by Sir Philip Sidney, and is to be found in the dramatists of the time, though modern editors always change it to himself. How the dative pronoun got itself fastened upon self in the third person masculine and neuter is one of the mysteries of language, but there it is, and so, against all logic, history and grammatical regularity, himself, themselves and itself (not its-self) are in favor today. But the American, as usual, inclines against these illogical exceptions to the rule set by myself. I constantly hear hisself and theirselves, as in “he done it hisself” and “they know theirselves.” Also, the emphatic own is often inserted between the pronoun and the noun, as in “let every man save his own self.” In general the American vulgate makes very extensive use of the reflexive. It is constantly thrown in for good measure, as in “I overeat myself” and it is as constantly used singly, as in “self and wife.”

The American pronoun does not necessarily agree with its noun in number. I find “I can tell each one what they make,” “each fellow put their foot on the line,” “nobody can do what they like”