Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 10:45:33 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: Reflexives elisa vazquez iglesias asks: >>> Could you say "Shall I fix yourself a sandwich?"?[1] What about "Shall I fix himself a sandwich?"?[2] Do you find any grammatical difference between these two sentences?[3] <<< 1: NO!!!! 2: NO!!!! 3: NO!!!! They're both HORRIBLE!!!! ... except, for #2, in a usage that you're probably not thinking about, which I believe has been discussed here, in which "himself" is used with no reflexive sense to refer to the Man of the House. I think of it as having an Irish flavor, but no doubt I will be corrected by the more knowledgeable. This usage is no part of my speech, which is why it is irrelevant to my answer #2. Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/