Subject and Object

[Tero]

Is this so difficult?

From the moment myself and my husband got together not long ago, there was intense pressure placed upon him by certain people in his life, not to be involved with me. These were people who had never met me but had formed opinions of me based on what they read about 'Sinead 'O'Connor' in the media etc. Entitled as they are to their opinions about me many perhaps well deserved, there was no righteousness on anyone's part to put my husband through what he was put through as a result of his desire to be with me and to marry me and as a result of his actually marrying me.

This is Sinead 'O'Connor who writes songs and shit.

I am talking about the fourth word. Myself thinks English speakers have no idea how to use I, me and myself. A few pronouns! It's not like in German where every noun has a specific case in a sentence.

[Atheist-Lite]

Is this so difficult?

From the moment myself and my husband got together not long ago, there was intense pressure placed upon him by certain people in his life, not to be involved with me. These were people who had never met me but had formed opinions of me based on what they read about 'Sinead 'O'Connor' in the media etc. Entitled as they are to their opinions about me many perhaps well deserved, there was no righteousness on anyone's part to put my husband through what he was put through as a result of his desire to be with me and to marry me and as a result of his actually marrying me.

This is Sinead 'O'Connor who writes songs and shit.

I am talking about the fourth word. Myself thinks English speakers have no idea how to use I, me and myself. A few pronouns! It's not like in German where every noun has a specific case in a sentence.

She didn't want what she briefly had? Yet didn't want to implicate herself in the decision making process by using 'I' ?

[Tero]

Let's try this again.

I gave myself a present. I gave me a present. Fine. Myself can be used like that. I washed myself. Fine.

Myself did not go tot the store for milk. I went to the store. I and my wife went to the store. Myself and my wife did not go.

[Tero]

Here is level two. Indirect object is the word you can drop and the sentence still makes some sense. The direct object you cannot drop.

[Svartalf]

Of coursse, a more normal formulation would have been "I and my husband"
She obviously was deliberately misusing the reflexive "myself" for emphasis (or she's extremely egocentric and self absorbed)

[Tero]

or she's extremely egocentric and self absorbed

It's kind of sad when good artists and writers think they are beyond editing and using a producer. Everybody needs an editor.

[John_fi_Skye]

Or she's Irish. What you've said is bang-on in terms of Standard English, Tero; but in parts of the world where English is the dominant language but another language is also spoken, the influence of that other language on English can be felt in syntax and in lexis (and, of course, it works the other way, too.) In the parts of Scotland where Gaelic is spoken, "myself" is used in ways similar to Ms O'Connor's usage because of the fact that in Gaelic "mise" (pronounced like Mischa Barton's first name, and meaning "myself") is used in that way. Though I'm not knowledgeable about Erse, I do know it and Scots Gaelic are pretty-well mutually comprehensible, and so it wouldn't surprise me if that were behind the phenomenon you observe.

[Svartalf]

Dunno... When I was in Ireland, studying the local language, I don't remember whether "myself" was so common as a pronoun, but I don't remember uses of "mise" being all that common compared to "mé", or simply assimilating the pronoun into the verb.

Also, you do know that "Erse" is more properly applied to Scottish Gaelic, and that it is used for Irish only as an extension of the name to all Goidelic languages, right?

[John_fi_Skye]

Dunno... When I was in Ireland, studying the local language, I don't remember whether "myself" was so common as a pronoun, but I don't remember uses of "mise" being all that common compared to "mé", or simply assimilating the pronoun into the verb.

Also, you do know that "Erse" is more properly applied to Scottish Gaelic, and that it is used for Irish only as an extension of the name to all Goidelic languages, right?

Yeah, I was just quoting Robert Burns, who died in the town where I was born. He wasn't the greatest philologist, but he loved the Celtic tunes, and used lots of them for his own lyrics.

Mairi Mhor nan Oran (Big Mary of the Songs, Mary Macpherson of Braes, near Portree) wrote a song that illustrates what I was meaning in terms of Scots Gaelic: it begins, "Tha mise fo mhulad san am" - "I'm really sad (lit. 'under sadness') just now." The "mise" can be translated here, as I did it, as "I", but it is indeed the emphatic form of "mi". Ordinary, colloquial Gaelic would be something like "tha mi bronach an drasda", but as Ezra Pound said, when you translate poetry, it's the poetry that gets left out, so we'll take it that Mairi Mhor had her valid reasons for using "mise".

[John_fi_Skye]

Incidentally, that Mairi Mhor song then goes on, "Chan olar leam dram le sunnd" ("even a dram doesn't make me happy.") Fortunately, I'm not having the same trouble tonight.

[Svartalf]

On another hand, I know a Hebridean song that just says it as "Tha mulad"
(or composed to sound like a waulking song, at least, but my guess is it's actually traditional"

[John_fi_Skye]

On another hand, I know a Hebridean song that just says it as "Tha mulad"
(or composed to sound like a waulking song, at least, but my guess is it's actually traditional"

I'm just a learner - not a native speaker - but "tha mulad" doesn't mean anything to me. "Sadness is." But you'd have to be careful what came next, because Gaelic has two verbs "to be", and "tha" is part of the one that would be used if you put an adjective next - eg "tha mulad sgoinneil" ("sadness is great") - but not a noun or a nounal construction: for that, you'd need the verb "is" (pronounced "iss", and often elided to 's.) So, "'s mulad a tha mi a' fearachdainn" ("it's sadness I'm feeling"). So, "tha mulad" doesn't feel right to me.

[Svartalf]

Here's the original text

Tha mulad, tha mulad
Tha lionn-dubh orm fhéin

and the full song is here

I never got in the mood to do a mechanical number on it, especially since being more familiar with Irish leaves me prone to making silly mistakes or getting stumped by dialectical differences.

[John_fi_Skye]

Here's the original text

Tha mulad, tha mulad
Tha lionn-dubh orm fhéin

and the full song is here

I never got in the mood to do a mechanical number on it, especially since being more familiar with Irish leaves me prone to making silly mistakes or getting stumped by dialectical differences.

Well now, in the light of what started us on this tack, when you look at the whole song (which is clearly the Gaelic of a native speaker) - indeed, when you look at just the wee bit you quoted - you see another example of exactly what I was saying about Sinead O'Connor's usage. There are two ways of saying "myself" in Gaelic: "mise", as discussed earlier; and "mi fhein" (same as the Irish political organisation "Sinn Fein", meaning "Ourselves".) And then they have prepositional pronouns: "air mi fhein" ("on myself") would never be said by a Gael; rather, he/she would say "orm fhein". So, in the economically-written bit you quoted, the full meaning is, "tha mulad orm fhein, tha mulad orm fhein, tha lionn-dubh orm fhein" - "I'm sad" three times over, with "tha mulad orm fhein" meaning, "sadness is on MYSELF"!

QED.

[Tero]

Hmm, I will not stick my grammar nazi stick in the Gaelic beehive anymore.