When asking a question using a reflexive pronoun which pronoun should be used?
My - and I imagine your - instinct is to use a gender neutral pronoun such as themselves or even more traditionally himself. However, while this makes sense and is certainly idiomatic, since the reflexive pronoun should always match its subject, and as the subject is who, why do we not use 'whomself'?
This question was asked a decade ago on a different forum where respondents dismissed it as a mishearing and that:
Perhaps it was meant to be himself not whomself?
Whomself could be used in any reflexive sentence where some ill-fitting neutral pronoun sits now, for example:
Who threw whomself at them
At the moment, this is said
Who threw themselves at them
Which mixes them and themselves and is altogether less clear than using whomself
Why is this imaginary pronoun not used, for it would fit a gap in the language, even if that gap has not been noticed by the majority of people?
I am also curious as to whether any other languages who use such reflexive formations include a 'who' pronoun along the vein of whomself, are there any?