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.

Exceptions

I was thinking about the exception of phrases like "a number of" and "a variety of" taking singular and plural verbs; and I felt the need to post a question regarding the use of "their."

"Their" is a plural pronoun; but why can't "their" be a singular pronoun, if used consistently in written languagel? I know there are a lot of problems in gender studies with identity; and the use of "their" is ambiguous, in a wonderful way; it allows for a dual or third gender.

Don't you think "their" can be used as single pronoun? Can't the English language make an exception? Really, it's not like we don't make a milliion already. :-)

I don't know. Just a thought.