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I'm confused about when to use ourselves and when to use us. I looked at this question, but I'm not sure how to generalize that answer to the sentence I am working with.

We need to base our judgments about how safely people will act toward ourselves and our children on how well we know them and their behavior in the moment.

My inclination is to tell the author to change ourselves to us. Is that correct?

We need to base our judgments about how safely people will act toward us and our children on how well we know them and their behavior in the moment.

In the sentence, we refers to parents in general as a whole in society.

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Lacey
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  • In terms of the definitions, it appears that there's no difference between the two words. The only connotative difference I see (and I could be mistaken here) is that "ourselves" seems to refer to a group of people as individuals, whereas "us" refers to a group of people as a group. In other words, "ourselves" is "our [individual] selves" and "us" is "we as a group". Again, I could be mistaken. I'm curious to know what others think. – Liesmith Jul 22 '14 at 21:08
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    It's us and not ourselves because it is other people who are acting towards us, and not we ourselves. – Andrew Leach Jul 22 '14 at 21:27
  • @Liesmith That makes sense to me. It's an extremely subtle difference. I don't think there is an answer as it stands; we'd need more context. For example if "we" referred to a couple and "X and our children" effectively meant "our family as a group", then I'd definitely use "us". At the other extreme if the "we" were a larger more nebulous group, including parents of different children making possibly different judgements, then I might be tempted to use "ourselves". So, is the "we" a couple, a parent teacher organisation, the whole of society...? – Rupe Jul 22 '14 at 21:27
  • If the linked question does not address this one, please edit this question to explicitly cover the unanswered points. There's no issue with having a question closed as a duplicate: it provides another pointer/search result to help future visitors. – Andrew Leach Jul 22 '14 at 21:53
  • I updated the question to clarify that we refers to parents in general. @AndrewLeach, does that make a difference to the usage? – Lacey Jul 22 '14 at 22:27
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    I don't believe it does, because we and us are identified as that group. It doesn't matter what the group is: if you are part of a group ("we") and that group is acting on itself, use ourselves; if someone else is acting on the group, use us. – Andrew Leach Jul 22 '14 at 22:41

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