1176. This week, we look at mind-bending words, including "semordnilap" (which spells "palindromes" backwards), "pentasyllabic" (which has five syllables), and "hyphenated" (which is not hyphenated). Then, we tackle how to use "me" and "myself" (with an aside for "hisself," "meself," and more fun dialect words).
1176. This week, we look at mind-bending words, including "semordnilap" (which spells "palindromes" backwards), "pentasyllabic" (which has five syllables), and "hyphenated" (which is not hyphenated). Then, we tackle how to use "me" and "myself" (with an aside for "hisself," "meself," and more fun dialect words).
The "palindrome" segment was by Karen Lunde, a career writer and former Quick & Dirty Tips editor. She writes I'll Go First, a Substack where she shares personal essays and memoir, then hands you a weekly writing prompt and a metaphorical pen. Find her on igofirst.org.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and today we’re talking about words that do what they say, and then we'll talk about why people can get confused about using the word "myself."Â
 This first segment is by Karen Lunde.Â
Have you ever heard the term "semordnilap"? Sounds like a large, fantastical beast you might find lumbering through a Doctor Seuss book, doesn't it? But no, a semordnilap isn't a creature; it's a word that spells a different word when it's reversed. “Semordnilap” backwards is “palindromes.”
One of my favorite examples is the word "stressed." Backwards, it's "desserts." I think we could all use less of the former and more of the latter . . . in moderation, of course.
"Semordnilap" is what language nerds call "autological." Those are words that "self-describe," where the definition of the word applies to the word itself. "Autological" comes from Greek: "auto," meaning "self," and "logos," meaning "word."Â
But wait. If "semordnilap" is an autological word, how does it describe itself? Try thinking of it reversed! It spells "palindromes." So, "semordnilap" is not only a term for a word that spells a different word backwards, it also is that kind of word.Â
Here are a few other examples of autological words:
"Polysyllabic" means "having many syllables" . . . it has five.Â
Or if you want to take it up another notch, there's "pentasyllabic." It means "having five syllables" and . . . guess how many it has.
"Unhyphenated" has no hyphen.
"Short" is a short word.Â
"Sesquipedalian" means "a very long word," and at 14 letters and five or six syllables — depending on how you pronounce it — it absolutely is a very long word.Â
And of course, there's an opposite term for words that don't possess the property they describe: "heterological." The same Greek roots, but in this case we start with "hetero," which means "different" or "other." You could argue that most words are heterological, but we tend to notice the ones that create a sort of paradox. We'll talk more about that in a moment.
But before we do, let's go back to our first word. Although "palindromes" is a semordnilap, its singular version — "palindrome" — isn't. "Palindrome" backwards is "emordnilap," which, as your spellchecker will quickly tell you, is not a real word. So, "palindrome" is heterological.Â
What other words are famously not self-describing?Â
"Big" is a tiny, three-letter word, and "long" isn't a particularly long one.Â
"Hyphenated" doesn't have a hyphen.Â
"Verb" isn't a verb; it's a noun.Â
And "monosyllabic" means "having one syllable," but . . . whoops.Â
Now, here's where things get really fun. Consider the word "heterological" itself. Is it autological or heterological? If it's heterological, meaning it doesn't describe itself, then it does describe itself, which would make it autological. But if it's autological, meaning it does describe itself, then it doesn't describe itself, which makes it heterological. Round and round you go, and there's no exit ramp.
This brain-twister is called the Grelling-Nelson Paradox, named for the two philosophers and logicians (studiers of logic) who formalized it in 1908. It's related to Russell's Paradox, which threw a similar monkey wrench into mathematics. It's also a close cousin of the famous liar's paradox: "This statement is false." If the statement is actually false, then it's true, but also false, but also . . . you get the idea.Â
The paradox doesn't break the usefulness of autological and heterological as categories — many words behave themselves just fine. It just means that "heterological" itself refuses to play by the rules, sitting smugly at the edge of the map where the logic runs out.Â
Mathematicians, philosophers, and logicians have been poking at the Grelling-Nelson Paradox for more than a century, and nobody has come up with a solution that satisfies everyone. Some people have suggested that "heterological" simply isn't a well-formed concept because asking whether it describes itself is like asking what's north of the North Pole. It's not that the answer is hard to find; it's that the question itself is broken.
Other people have tried to resolve it by building elaborate logical frameworks with strict rules about self-reference, basically, laws that say a word can't be used to classify itself. These frameworks work, more or less, but they feel a little like fixing a wobbly table by nailing it to the floor. Technically solved, but not exactly an elegant solution.
What's oddly reassuring about all this is that language was doing strange things long before anyone had a name for them. The paradox didn't break language — we've been speaking and writing just fine. Instead, the problem just showed that even our best attempts to pin words down can get away from us. And for grammar nerds, that can actually be part of the fun.
It's why we fell in love with language in the first place: it's alive, it's slippery, and just when you think you've got it figured out, it turns around and asks you a question.
That segment was by Karen Lunde, a career writer and former Quick & Dirty Tips editor. She writes I'll Go First, a Substack where she shares personal essays and memoir, then hands you a weekly writing prompt and a metaphorical pen. Find her on igofirst.org.
How to use the word “myself” is one of the top 10 or 20 questions I get. Here’s an example:
Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Chuck Tomasi, your interim Grammar Guy from ChuckChat.com, home of podcasts too numerous to mention. I hear and see examples of the misuse of the word “myself” all the time. For example, an email went out from HR like this, “Please contact Squiggly, Aardvark, or myself with questions.” Could you please help listeners know when the word “myself” is appropriate and when to use a more appropriate word? Thanks!
Excellent, Chuck! Let's dissect what's wrong with that sentence: "Please contact Squiggly, Aardvark, or myself with questions." The simplest way to think of it is like this: How would you say the sentence without Squiggly and Aardvark? Then it usually becomes obvious! You would say, “Please contact me with questions,” not, “Please contact myself with questions.” So when you add in Squiggly and Aardvark, it doesn't change anything. It's still correct to say, “Please contact Squiggly, Aardvark, or me with questions.”
Digging into the topic a little deeper, “myself” is what's called a reflexive pronoun. That can be hard to remember, but just think about looking in a mirror and seeing your reflection. You'd say, “I see myself in the mirror.” You see your reflection, and “myself” is a reflexive pronoun. That’s how I remember the name.
So all personal pronouns have a matching reflexive pronoun. Here are some other pairs:Â
you — yourself and yourselves
it — itself
he — himself
one — oneself
they — themselves
And if you’re using “they” as a singular pronoun, some style guides also allow you to use “themself” as a singular reflexive pronoun.Â
A reflexive pronoun is always the object in a sentence; it can never be the subject. I’ve talked about this before, but in simple terms, a subject is the one doing something in a sentence, and the object is the one having something done to it. If I hug Squiggly, I am the subject, and Squiggly is the object.
You would never say, “Myself hugged Squiggly,” so you would also never say, “Aardvark and myself hugged Squiggly.”
At least you wouldn’t say this in Standard English. As an interesting aside, some dialects do use some of these words as personal pronouns in the subject position. For example, some Irish people use “himself” and “herself” to refer to an important person like a boss, the head of the household, or in old times the lord of the castle. So if you are looking for a shop owner in Ireland, and he’s out, someone working in the store might tell you, “Himself isn’t here right now.”
So if you’re Irish or you’re writing fiction with Irish characters, you might actually say something like “Herself hugged Squiggly,” but most of the rest of us wouldn’t because it’s not Standard English.
Another time when it’s correct to use “myself” in Standard English is when you are both the subject and the object of a sentence. This is what’s happening when you’re using “myself” as a reflexive pronoun; for example, if you were to say, “I see myself playing maracas,” or, “I'm going to treat myself to a mud bath.” In both cases you are the object of your own action, so “myself” is the right word to use.
As another interesting aside, in some dialects people would use “me” or “meself” instead of “myself” in such sentences.Â
For example, you might hear “I’m going to get me a mud bath,” or “I found meself at the pub.” “Meself” was actually the way people said it in Old English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and some people still say “meself” as slang or as a dialect in certain places, such as the Northumbrian region of northern England.
It’s interesting, but because we’re talking about Standard English here, “myself” is the right pronoun for a sentence such as “I told myself to take a deep breath.”
Also, if you’re learning English, you may have noticed that the way we form these words today isn’t consistent. If you grew up speaking English, you’ve probably never noticed this before, but people learning English often ask why we use “himself” instead of “hisself” and “themselves” instead of “theirselves.”Â
It’s easy to see why they’re confused! Think about it:Â
For some of the reflexive pronouns, we use the possessive before the “self” part: “myself,” and “yourself.” That is my sweater. Get your jacket. “My” and “your” are possessive adjectives.
But for others, we use the object form before the “self” part: for example, “himself” and “themselves.” I gave it to him. I sent it to them. “Him” and “them” are object pronouns.
The only thing I can tell you is that English isn’t logical. These words have changed over time, and they haven’t all changed the same way, and sometimes the old way or the way that seems more logical continues to exist in dialects. Some people actually do say “hisself,” but it’s not the kind of thing you should typically say in a school paper or at work. So if you’re learning English, you just need to memorize the Standard English forms of these pronouns. Sorry!
Moving on, pronouns like “myself” and “himself” can also be used to add emphasis to a sentence, and when they are, they’re called intensive pronouns—same words, just a different name because they’re being used differently.Â
For example, if you witnessed a murder, you could say, “I myself saw the madman's handiwork.” Sure, it's a bit dramatic, but it's also adding emphasis in a grammatically correct way.
If you want to emphasize how proud you are of your baking, you could say, “I baked that cake myself.” Again, it’s redundant, but “myself” adds emphasis. The meaning of the sentence doesn't change if you take out the word “myself”; it would just have a different feeling because it would lack the added emphasis.
So there you go! The quick and dirty tip is to think about how you would write the sentence if you were the only one in it, and then use that pronoun. For example, “Please contact me.” That's where people usually get hung up on the word “myself.”Â
And then you can also remember that it's OK to use these pronouns for emphasis and when you are the object of your own action. And I hope you enjoyed the asides about dialects!
Finally, I have a familect story from Sarah:
"Hi there, Grammar Girl. This is Sarah from Cleveland, Ohio. I just wanted to mention the word of our family. We are Italian-American, and if you had a piece of lint on your shirt or on your bag, we would say, 'Oh look, hold on a sec, you've got a friggaloozi.' And I tried to look up 'friggaloozi' in Italian, and I can't find the word. I don't know where it came from, but there is my family's word: friggaloozi."
Thanks, Sarah. That's great! I've never heard that before, but if we have any Italian listeners who can tell us about it, please let me know by tagging me on social media or you can leave a voice message at speakpipe.com/grammargirl.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Morgan Christianson; Rebekah Sebastian; Dan Feierabend; Maram Elnagheeb; Nat Hoopes; Steven Schapansky; and Holly Hutchings, who just learned the Men in Black line dance. (How fun! Now I want to go watch that movie again.)Â
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.Â
That's all. Thanks for listening.Â