Reflexive, Intensive & Reciprocal Pronouns

You've just finished a group science project and you fire off a message in the class chat: "Thanks for helping myself with the poster." Your friend sends back a laughing emoji and one word: "Myself?" Now you're not sure. Was that wrong? Does myself sound more grown-up than me, or does it just sound wrong dressed up as posh?

Here's the thing. Words like myself, yourself and each other aren't fancy alternatives to me and you — they're pronouns with specific jobs, and each job has its own rule. Some turn an action back on the person who did it. Some just add a bit of stress, like underlining a word. And some describe an action bouncing back and forth between two or more people. Nobody's born knowing which is which, but once you see the three jobs clearly, the guessing stops.

This builds on the basics of personal pronouns and possessives already covered — if I/me or my/mine still feel wobbly, have a look at those first.

Reflexive: the action bounces back

You'll recognise the reflexive pronouns straight away — they end in -self or -selves: myself, yourself/yourselves, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves.

You use one when the subject and the object of the same verb are the same person or thing:

• I cut myself on the broken glass.
• She taught herself to play guitar.
• We enjoyed ourselves at the party.

Who did the cutting? I. Who got cut? Myself — the same person. The action reflects back, like a tennis ball hit against a wall and caught by the same hand that threw it. If the subject and object are two different people, you don't use a reflexive at all — you use an ordinary object pronoun:

• ✓ I cut him. ✗ I cut himself.
• ✓ She helped me. ✗ She helped myself.

One handy idiom you already know: by + reflexive means "alone." I did the whole poster by myself just means nobody helped. And watch the forms — hisself and theirselves turn up in casual speech, but the standard forms are himself and themselves, no exceptions.

Intensive: the same words, just for emphasis

Here's the twist: intensive (or emphatic) pronouns use the exact same words — myself, herself, themselves — but they're not the object of the verb. They're only there to add emphasis. Compare:

• I baked this cake.
• I baked this cake myself.

In the second, myself isn't receiving the baking; it just stresses that I, and nobody else, did it. Here's your test: could you delete the word and still have a complete sentence? If yes, it's intensive.

• The headteacher herself handed out the certificates. → "The headteacher handed out the certificates." (still fine — intensive)
• He hurt himself during PE. → "He hurt during PE." (falls apart — reflexive, and needed)

Reciprocal: an action that goes both ways

Reciprocal pronouns — each other and one another — describe an action passing between two or more people, going both ways, like two friends swapping homework to check it:

• We checked each other's answers.
• The players congratulated each other after the match.

Notice how this changes the meaning: We checked ourselves would mean each person checked their own work — a completely different idea. You may have been taught each other for two people and one another for three or more; that rule is genuinely old, but in modern use most careful writers treat the two as interchangeable, and most exam boards accept either. One spelling to lock in: the possessive is each other's, never each others' — the apostrophe goes before the s, because each other behaves as a single unit.

Watch out: the "myself" trap

Because myself sounds a bit more careful and grown-up than me, people start reaching for it everywhere — including places where it's flatly wrong:

• ✗ If you have any questions, ask myself.
• ✗ She gave the tickets to my friend and myself.
• ✗ Between you and myself, that test was impossible.

This is called hypercorrection: trying so hard to sound careful that you overshoot into an actual mistake. The test is always the same — is myself referring back to an I doing something to itself in the same clause? If there's no such loop, you need me, not myself.

A quick trick: strip the sentence down to just the pronoun. She gave the tickets to my friend and myself becomes She gave the tickets to myself — obviously wrong on its own. Swap in me, put your friend back, and you're sorted: She gave the tickets to my friend and me.

And one meaning-changer worth reading twice, because reflexive and reciprocal look alike but say different things:

• The players blamed themselves. → Each player feels personally responsible.
• The players blamed each other. → They're pointing fingers at their teammates.

Quick check

1. Choose: "They blamed ___ for the loss." a) them b) themselves c) each other

2. Is myself reflexive or intensive: "I wrote this essay myself"?

3. Correct if needed: "If you have any questions, come and see myself after class."

4. Fill the gap with each other's or themselves: "The two sisters kept borrowing ___ clothes."

5. Difference in meaning: a) "The players criticised themselves." b) "The players criticised each other."

UK vs US Note

Reflexive, intensive and reciprocal pronouns work exactly the same way in UK and US English — no differences in the rules at all. The only thing that shifts is spelling in related vocabulary: a British writer recognises the pattern [US: recognizes] and ends a sentence with a full stop [US: period]. The pronouns themselves — myself, yourself, each other and the rest — don't change on either side of the Atlantic.

Where next

• Personal Pronouns — : I, Me, You, Him, Her, They
• Possessive Pronouns and Determiners — : My, Mine, Your, Yours