Monday, April 23, 2007

I, myself ...

I, myself, am always bothered by phrases like "I myself," "he himself," or "you yourself." I know that it is for effect, in which the emphasis is in the redundancy, but it just seems so--redundant! Also, what part of speech is the "x-self"? It is a non-restrictive clause? Or an appositive? Which would mean that there should be commas in either case but I've seen it without commas.

1 comment:

Pat said...

This is probably a rhetorical artifact—that is, something left over from the time when people mainly communicated by the spoken word.

My guess is that you're right to think that it is a nonrestrictive appositive and that it should have commas. Let me double-check on all that and get back to you.