The Selves

Selfies have become not only the rage, they're now the norm. Selfies are pictures that are taken of your own self by your own self. While they used to be single-person images, they've grown to include clusters of people. Although that would qualify them to be called "groupies", they're not. That's something completely different.

But as you can see from the opening sentences, the matter of how to use and when to use "yourself" compared with "theirself" or "themself" (complete with spellcheck's squiggly red underscore) can become problematic. Sometimes it's easier to go the long way around and just say "they did it on their own" or "they did it to their own self," which, admittedly, becomes a bit cumbersome. All that work to say something simple about "them."

So here's the skinny from Dictionary.com.

About "Theirself"

According to Dictionary.com, "theirself is the nonstandard variant of (what else?) "themself." Its usage comes from 13th Century Middle England and is an informal usage, i.e., spoken by the common folk; not necessarily proper English. Have we spent enough time on this part of the exercise?

Checking the Sources

It's useful to check the guidelines about use and usage before jumping into the middle of the ocean. After all, you want to know you'll have good footing or an easy way to swim. In this regard, I did a bit of research for you who (like me) were wondering about this and gaining way more gray (which way to spell that, with an "e" or an "a"?) hair than you deserve. With a search string that queried the principles of usage between the two words (themselves compared with theirselves), an avalanche hit me.

These words are considered reflective pronouns. Writing Explained (WE) tells us not only do these reflective pronouns talk about what's being done, they also emphasize who is doing it. (Hint: According to Stack Exchange, it means the speaker is doing it to their own self. A bit like self flagellation, e.g., he was flogging himself.) EX: The class took theirselves to the bistro. Who did this? The class. what did they do? They took themselves, and no one else. (Maybe it was a private party.) One example WE gives is the classic "Please CC myself and Donna on the email." That was one of the grammar lessons from Third Grade. The speaker comes last in the enumeration. Fortunately, that phrasing is noted as being "nontraditional" (ahem) and the correct phrasing (called more graceful) is provided, "Please CC Donna and me on the email."

Now, I'm starting to get confused about which word to use, them or their. So let's just plow (did you know that the "plough" version of this word is British?) through all of this themming and theiring (not real words).

"Theirselves" is more typically spoken and is definitely not correct when written. Okay. Just don't use it. And if you don't speak it, you're less inclined to get confused about what to do when it needs to be (hint: never) written.

Them and Themselves

Grammar Girl is a major guru. She's a member of the American Copy Editors Society (did anyone know such a society exists?) and dutifully stays up to date on all things grammar. She even tracks what AP and Chicago Manual of Style have to say about proper usage. Apparently, this subject has been plaguing the brains of others. But the two monsters of style are at odds. Where AP says, with caution, it's okay to use "themself" but you may want to rephrase your sentence. Why? Because "themself" is considered that naughty of naughties, nonstandard, i.e., incorrect. However, guru Grammar Girl tells us "themselves" is okey-doke.

As for the Tangents

As for all those tangents that (ahem) arose, we'll deal with them on an item by item basis over the coming months.

Resources:

• Themselves or Theirselves – Which is Correct?
  
• ‘Themself’ or ‘Themselves’?
  
• American Copy Editors Society
  
• The Chicago Manual of Style Online
  
• The Chicago Manual of Style Online New Questions and Answers
  
• “them”, “themselves,” or “their selves”?
  

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Review: For Dad

Some of us keep journals. Others keep vlogs (that is, videos of us speaking to a camera about our personal thoughts). They're personal. They're helpful in getting through some situations that are simply not comprehensible in any other fashion. Even more importantly, they are the tool we use when we dare not express our thoughts aloud with someone else.

It's sort of the duty of maturing adolescents to assert themselves and challenge authority figures. They need to figure out how hard to push, when to push, and how to be good, responsible people. And then there's learning how to deal with loss or death.

Techniques in good story telling involve many dynamics. Building tension is one such technique to keep the audience's attention. That requires having a good premise. The characters need to have charisma but they also need to have flaws.

There need to be contrasts. "For Dad" offers them from the perspective of the adolescent, full of promise juxtaposed to the comatose adult. We wonder what the outcome will be. A good story has an ending that's a surprise each time you experience it. Should the audience expect this conclusion?

Enter the adolescent girl, probably 15 or 16. Her father has just slipped into a coma. In "For Dad," we meet the unnamed heroine of the video journal. She is saddened at the loss. She poses one ultimatum after another to her sleeping father in an attempt to force him back into consciousness and reunion with the family. But those ultimatums are deals she makes after filling him in on what's been happening in her current world without him.

It's fascinating how much we learn from our parental experiences. Those are the foundations upon which we decipher how to navigate Life. Our protagonist has her first boyfriend. He wants her to break up with him. And she expresses what she realizes Dad will say in response to that situation. It shows she has a good foundation upon which to reason through good decision.

Her journal takes us through nearly a year and a half of fighting through the range of emotions that come from loss - grief, anger, depression, determination, resolve, acceptance. But she continues to bargain with Dad to wake up while also keeping him up to date on her progression through learning how to live and be vital again.

That includes being a teenager and going to the mall. Although they aren't the focus, we see the seasons passing. She meets a guy. She likes him. Opportunity lost. Opportunity regained. Bargain with Dad to wake up so he can meet the guy.

In her determination to get Dad back, she rummages through some of his belongings that were boxed and stored. She finds some things that were hidden. Best not kept for public viewing, especially for teenagers.

Seasons come and go. Dad's birthday comes around. It's celebrated by her with a nose ring and black lipstick - and more bargaining. But all the while, a return to living is evolving in the protagonist's life. More bargaining; more pressing the story forward. The tension is rising. It keeps us riveted to this story coming from a young perspective, one filled with promise.

Being vital culminates in taking a bike trip with the new boyfriend and a few other friends. They start from home on a journey to the coast, 400 miles away. She's still challenging Dad. She's still bargaining with him. When she makes that 800-mile round trip adventure, it will be tantamount to Dad's having gone on his own adventure and the both of them will complete their journeys and reconvene to celebrate.

Sure enough, her determination, her faith, have a payload. She receives a text message that Dad woke up. Since she's still on her own bike trip and three hours away from home by car, she (now a licensed driver) uses the car of one of the members of the group to get home. She's excited. She's so thrilled that she doesn't realize some of the things she's doing that are putting them in harm's way.

This is a short-short. The tension isn't predicated on what's not told (names, location, time of year) as much as it is on what's going to happen. Identifying with the experiences is also easy. No matter what the race or gender, the scenarios are of the human experience.

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But It's Protected

The wonderful world of copyright. When did that evolve into law that provides legal remedies for taking the work of another, claiming ownership of it, and then reaping economic reward for the theft?

Outright plagiarism still happens. Copying and modifying a theme gets us into murky waters. And then there is the matter of ideas and proposals that contain the idea for a work. Some of it is entitled to protection. Some of it takes finessing in order to make certain it doesn't unintentionally become public domain. And some simply isn't protected - or maybe it isn't.

Advice regarding what can be protected comes from copyright lawyer, Brian Klems. "[C]opyright doesn’t stop at your words, but protects any original expression in your work, including detailed outlines, plots and characters." Not too many folks understand that. Consider the kindly folks in the church committee who are trying to approve a new program. Someone steps up to the plate and outlines something they believe will be worthwhile. It sits in Committee for six months. It languishes. Meanwhile, someone needs further details. Those are willingly supplied. After all, this is a church group that is founded on ethical and honest behavior. A year later the program is nixed but someone else produces a program that is eerily similar to the one that was proposed. The doppelganger has some nice aspects to it but lacks the true thrust of the original idea. The original idea is somewhere in either the back of the file drawer or last year's trash.

Then there's the idea presented to a professional organization. "That's a fantastic idea," someone exclaims. "Let's work on it together so we can develop the details." Of course that collaboration happens. And then the colleague is mysteriously unavailable, that is, until they produce an initiative under their own authorship.

We need to be certain of the ethics of those with whom we're working and that they understand the principles of copyright. That doesn't mean browbeat everyone with your encyclopedic knowledge each time you have a discussion. But some preliminaries are justified. Observe the members of the group and learn about their habits and beliefs. Notice how they treat others. Have a conversation about their understanding of limits and boundaries, what will happen and under what circumstances is a healthy idea. (Document it.) If you see eye to eye, move forward. If they breach the understanding, it's time to move on to a healthier environment that focused on mutual benefits.

Be clever with your creations. Be smart and informed with how you handle marketing and publishing them. Be agreeable but also be wise about the nebulous subject of copyright.

Resources:

• What Does Copyright Protect?, Copyright.gov
  
• Copyright, IPWatchdog.com
  
• Can You Copyright an Idea?, Brian A. Klems, Writer's Digest (July 29, 2013)
  
• FREE DOWNLOAD: What is Plagiarism? – And other Copyright Law FAQs, Writer's Digest
  
• How To Copyright An Idea For Film Or TV, (How to Copyright and Protect Your Ideas), Stephanie Palmer, Good in a Room
  
• Protecting Your Ideas: Copyright Boundaries, Howard G. Zaharoff, Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton, PC (May 15, 2001)
  
• A Brief History of Copyright, Intellectual Property Rights Office
  
• History of Copyright (2005)
  
• Copyright law of the United States, Wikipedia
  
• Gaye vs. Thicke: How blurred are the lines of copyright infringement?, By Matthew D. Morrison, OUPBlog, Oxford University Press (March 26th 2015)
  

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• Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age 2017: Vol. II Copyrights, Trademarks and State IP Protections
  
• Digital Rights Summit