You Be Illein'
August 28, 2015 6:04 AM   Subscribe

Why do some people refer to themselves in the third person? asks Vanessa Barford, in a BBC News Magazine article. Misteraitch doesn’t know. The act of referring to oneself in this way is known as Illeism (Wikipedia) (apparently from the Latin ille meaning “he, that”). At Language Log, Arnold Zwicky writes on Illeism and its Relatives, and maintains that illeism in young children ought not be blamed on Elmo. posted by misteraitch (37 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
Affectation.
posted by sexyrobot at 6:13 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Because it's catching. It's like a virus.

George caught it from Jimmy. One day he was perfectly normal, the next day:

George: You wanted to see me, Mr. Steinbrenner?

Mr. Steinbrenner: Yes, George, come in, come in. You know, George, I've been your biggest supporter around here and that's why I was so disappointed to hear that you've been pilfering the equipment.

George: George would never do anything like that.

Mr. Steinbrenner: No, why would I? I own it.

George: Right.

Mr. Steinbrenner: So what are you saying?

George: Why would George steal from the Yankees?

Mr. Steinbrenner: He wouldn't.

George: Of course not.

Mr. Steinbrenner: Exactly.

(George gestures: so there you are.)
posted by Naberius at 6:29 AM on August 28, 2015 [9 favorites]


Jimmy's new in town. Jimmy's shy.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:43 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


George like his chicken spicy!
posted by jimmythefish at 6:45 AM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


DingoMutt came in for the Costanza references; she was not disappointed.
posted by DingoMutt at 6:46 AM on August 28, 2015 [10 favorites]


babyozzy is in the mostly-pre-verbal but understands-almost-everything stage, and I do find myself instinctively talking to her in the way the "Elmo" article describes ("Can Daddy put your shoes on?") because I know she doesn't really understand the personal pronouns yet. It's really bizarre to catch myself talking like that all the time.

Also mrsozzy and I find Elmo's stilted illeism sort of amusing (which I guess is sad in itself), and sometimes say "excuse Elmo" when we need to get past each other in our narrow kitchen.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:47 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Metroid Baby has been reading a bunch of books that specifically advise speaking this way towards toddlers, because pronouns are a little bit over their heads. Metroid Baby finds it awkward and silly, and has some trouble remembering to do it, but Baby Metroid Baby needs to learn his name. How big is Baby Metroid Baby? Sooooooo big! No, Baby Metroid Baby, we don't throw food on the floor, we say "all done." All done? All done? Metroid Baby needs a martini. No, Baby Metroid Baby, this is Metroid Baby's martini. Metroid Baby should have given Baby Metroid Baby a less confusing name.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:48 AM on August 28, 2015 [33 favorites]


This topic is beneath fairmettle.
posted by fairmettle at 6:48 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Performers . . . In Trump's case, he is also a brand.

Before reading the article, that was what I would have said, that it's a bit of PR business -- possibly not entirely conscious -- to present yourself as a reliable brand, or possibly as a consistent character on the world stage.

Trump's behaviour spotlights this gimmick, as did Bob Dole's a few years back.

Bob Dylan did/does this without the pronoun shift or self-reference.

It's also self-narration. Characters in Peanuts and Doonsbury do this olla time:

Peanuts: "Here's the World War One Flying Ace behind enemy lines. . . . "

Doonsbury: "As the kid goes for broke" was not only a character's line (actuallly, a thought bubble), but was recycled as the title of the anthology in which that strip was collected.

If journalism is the first draft of history, supplying pre-written headlines about oneself is one way of getting there.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:48 AM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


So, random (I think) interesting fact. In Japan it is especially common for girls (I don't think boys do it? But I don't actually know for sure) to refer to themselves in the third person, although from what I understand many girls grow out of this as they become women. But my Japanese sister-in-law--who happens to be a big-shot top-of-the-food-chain executive at the Japanese branch of a major western bank--refers to herself in the third person when she is around family. As an American it's rather disconcerting (although rather than regal or pretentious it really just seems childish), especially considering her professional life, and I still chuckle a bit when I hear her start talking about what she's going to do that day like Mei-chan in "My Neighbor Totoro."

Anyways, point is, it's different depending on culture. I'd be interested to hear how folks in other cultures do it too, and how it's perceived...
posted by dubitable at 6:52 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Bah. Doom feels no need to explain himself to lesser mortals.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:57 AM on August 28, 2015 [9 favorites]


In Japan it is especially common for girls . . . to refer to themselves in the third person

Oh, yeah, more pop culture example, FWIW. Mantis, in 1970s Marvel comics, always refered to herself as "this one". She was portrayed as a young woman who had grown up in an orphanage in Vietnam.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:59 AM on August 28, 2015


A MeFite thinks of this guy.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:09 AM on August 28, 2015 [6 favorites]


...because pronouns are a little bit over their heads
I have wondered about this. At first, everything is over their heads, but they seem to figure it out. Why wait in learning pronouns?
posted by MtDewd at 7:09 AM on August 28, 2015


I mean... 'one' has wondered...
posted by MtDewd at 7:10 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."
posted by three blind mice at 7:22 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is common in ASD people. I don't think that has anything to do with politicians' rhetorical use, but I wanted to point out that it isn't always affected.
posted by thetortoise at 7:26 AM on August 28, 2015


"Doom Rickey Henderson feels no need to explain himself to lesser mortals."

FTFY
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:43 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Politicians get criticised for using 'I' a lot, as Longuage Log has often noted.

Apparent Trump does self-reference a lot both ways. Possibly a sign of a man who's accustomed to handling himself?
posted by Segundus at 7:56 AM on August 28, 2015


Segundus: "Politicians get criticised for using 'I' a lot, as Longuage Log has often noted. "

Damned if I do, damned if Rock Steady doesn't.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:21 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


George Remus approves of this post.
posted by persona au gratin at 8:21 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Homey don't play that.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:34 AM on August 28, 2015


It's a slippery slope from branding oneself to self-aggrandizing Ricky Henderson style to being a full on Dr Doom villain.
posted by thecjm at 8:41 AM on August 28, 2015


BOB DOLE
posted by Sys Rq at 8:43 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


DingoMutt thinks Gambit should also be here, no?
posted by DingoMutt at 9:05 AM on August 28, 2015


Why wait in learning pronouns?

My specialty is not developmental ling, but in a nutshell, we learn / acquire facility with syntactic elements in a fairly predictable sequence, rather than a big bang overnight. Specifically, kids can understand the function of nouns and verbs, statements and questions up to a point well before they can fully understand how pronouns work. Little ones can't figure out how to connect a pronoun to the right antecedent.

Some search terms:
Developmental linguistics
[First or L1] Language acquisition
Order [of Acquisition]
Parts of speech
Pronouns

Here are excerpts from Wiccapeedia's "Order of Acquisition" article:
The order of acquisition concept is based on the observation that all children acquire their first language in a fixed, universal order, regardless of the specific grammatical structure of the language they learn.

Researchers have found a very consistent order in the acquisition of first-language structures by children . . .

[L]earners begin by omitting pronouns or using them indiscriminately: for example, using "I" to refer to all agents. Learners then acquire a single pronoun feature, often person, followed by number and eventually by gender.
posted by Herodios at 9:09 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Swedish court rulings are written in the third person. This court finds the charges proven and sentences the defendant to X. The court of appeals vacates the district court's ruling and remands the case to the district court.

This applies to the majority ruling even when it's delivered by a single judge. A dissenting opinion is written in the first person, singular or plural as applicable. U.S. courts seem to do the same. In contrast, UK High Court judgments from a single judge are written in the first person. For the reasons given above, I dismiss all of SAS Institute's claims except for its claim in respect of the WPS Manual. - Arnold J in SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2013] EWHC 69 (Ch)

I'm not sure what the punchline is.
posted by delegeferenda at 9:20 AM on August 28, 2015


[L]earners begin by omitting pronouns or using them indiscriminately: for example, using "I" to refer to all agents.

Coming up after the break: Is your toddler a Rastafarian?
posted by Sys Rq at 9:21 AM on August 28, 2015 [4 favorites]


Long ago and far away I knew someone who did this to distance herself from the stories she was telling about her own hilarious/bad decisions in a 50/50 jokey/serious way. Self-aggrandizing and its opposite at the same time.
posted by clavicle at 10:07 AM on August 28, 2015


Swedish court rulings are written in the third person. . . .

I'm not sure what the punchline is.


That's some court system you have there! What do you call it?
 
posted by Herodios at 10:19 AM on August 28, 2015


The aristocrats.
posted by delegeferenda at 10:39 AM on August 28, 2015


DOOM
posted by Hoopo at 10:59 AM on August 28, 2015


[L]earners begin by omitting pronouns or using them indiscriminately: for example, using "I" to refer to all agents. Learners then acquire a single pronoun feature, often person, followed by number and eventually by gender.

Story checks out. My toddler refers to herself by her name, everyone else gets their names, "she" or "her". It's fine but a bit emasculating sometimes -- she dropped her fork on my foot the other day and I was bleeding so I went to clean it up and put a bandage on and she says "is Daddy putting the bandaid on her bobo?" and I'm like SHUT UP IT HURTS, OK?
posted by Hoopo at 11:12 AM on August 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


I remember one of my high school teachers would often refer to herself in the third person. It was like a week before I realized she wasn't a substitute teacher.
posted by ckape at 1:19 PM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Ditto on the toddler/preschooler thing. Archie is three and a half now, and he's moooooostly got a handle on pronouns, but he switches them up for names more or less at random (and is fascinated by the idea that I am both Daddy and also Nathan). He also tends to refer to everyone as "he" or as a "little boy" with a few erratic exceptions. (F'r instance, Vanellope von Schweetz is sometimes correctly gendered, and he also decided on his own that the tiny pixelated main character in Titan Souls was "a gril" without any input or prompting from me.)
posted by Scattercat at 6:48 PM on August 28, 2015


Because they are often not yet old enough to "get" pronouns simply because you want them to. There is something particularly challenging about differentiating between "I,", "you," and "me" in particular since they are such relative / perspective-conditional expressions, at least in English, until a certain age. Even when they understand "I" and "me" for themselves they still think you are referring to them when you say "I" or "me."

But they will be able to "get" so many other things along the way if you just make this one thing easier for them...I found it totally natural and automatic after awhile and my philosophy is to basically talk to my kids with full non-baby-talk sentences, but the pronoun substitution seems helpful until you "get" that the kid is "getting" pronouns completely (which happens to come into your awareness automatically because you're not 100% of the time using first-person nor is much of the world around them).
posted by aydeejones at 8:13 PM on August 28, 2015


The first time that I ever encountered this Illeism concept was with the character Herbert Stencil in Thomas Pynchon's 1963 novel V. ... which is also (I think) the first modern novel to present that weird literary device where different chapters are spread across very wide geographic & temporal distances with rather tenuous narrative connections between them.
posted by ovvl at 4:53 PM on August 29, 2015


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