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"President Trump appreciates the outpouring of support for both he and the First Lady."

Should this be he, him or himself?

Mari-Lou A
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grateful
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1 Answers1

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This is an example of hypercorrection, a mistake all too common with pronouns after prepositions in a failed effort to sound more correct.

The preposition "for" takes an object of a preposition, and the object is "him." It may seem plain or simple because it is. If you simplify the sentence to "Trump appreciates the outpouring of support for ______," this can help you tell what case the pronoun should be.

"Himself" (as a reflexive pronoun) can be used if "he" or "him" has already been used in the sentence, and is often used instead of "him" in cases like this, again, as hypercorrection. "He supports himself," for example, but not "*They support himself."

livresque
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    Trump and Stepien are both affected. Stepien has received many messages of good will, and Trump appreciates the outpouring of support for ______ him? himself? – Edwin Ashworth Oct 03 '20 at 15:39
  • The object of the preposition is both. Using him after both is just a bit of recent prescriptivism. Historically, he following for both was by far the more common choice. Ngrams for "for both he and" and "for both him and" cross over around 1938. In 1840, he was about four times as common. Today, him is about four times as common. So it hardly qualifies as hypercorrection. – Phil Sweet Oct 03 '20 at 15:51
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    @PhilSweet: That search won't distinguish the construction here from constructions where for is being used before a clause, as in "[...], for both he and they were unhappy". – herisson Oct 03 '20 at 23:54
  • @EdwinAshworth Depends on what he appreciates. Himself would imply that he doesn't appreciate the support for anyone else (hm), him probably the other person, and them for both. – livresque Oct 04 '20 at 00:30
  • @PhilSweet Then isn't the pronoun in apposition to both, and also an object of the preposition? At the very least the determiner, well, adverbially of the pronoun? – livresque Oct 04 '20 at 00:37
  • I found a couple of different takes on this after posting the comment. Collins treats both ... and ... as its own construction and not as a pronoun and appositive. I not sure what's to be gained by doing that, though. And I need to look through more of the ngram data, because that clause structure was doubtless more common in the past. – Phil Sweet Oct 04 '20 at 01:40