This American Life, Myself

I'm about to send this email to Ira Glass, the producer of my favorite radio program, "This American Life" (see www.thisamericanlife.org). If you've never listened, please do, you will not regret it.

I only have one problem with the show, and it's grammatical. Read below.

Dear Ira and Others:

First, please allow me to say that I absolutely love "This American Life". I recently downloaded the IPhone App for the show, and if I was previously an avid listener, I am now perhaps an obsessed listener. I listen to approximately 10 episodes a week, and I am quickly making up for all the years during which I was not aware of your incredible program.

Allow me to also preface with this caveat: I am a bit of a grammar freak. Perhaps not a freak, but I like grammar, and I occasionally annoy people with my grammatical observations and corrections. Sure, I make mistakes too, but that doesn't stop me from being unable to contain myself at times. I also sometimes correct people on their usage of certain words. The other day, for instance, a friend used the word "dichotomous" when he meant to say "diatomaceous". I corrected him and he was sort of annoyed.

So, I'm annoying about grammar. We've settled that. My reason for writing you is this: You finish your shows wonderfully. I love hearing all the different things that Tory Malatia supposedly says. Every show, however, you say something like -- "This show was produced by (name) and myself....."

Why do you say "myself"? I believe that you should just say "me". Feel free to read this article: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/myself-grammar.aspx --

You'll find a nice description of the uses of "myself" there -- In a nutshell, "myself" is either a reflexive pronoun (I washed myself, She hurt herself, etc) or an intensive pronoun, used only to intensify a sentence (I saw it myself!).

I hope you don't take offense to my point, but I can't get this out of my head (perhaps it's because I listen to you so many times a week) and figured I should let you know.

I really hope that I didn't make any egregious grammatical errors in this letter.

Sincerely,

Christopher (Pancho) Romero Bond
Asheville, NC