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I have heard so many times that before starting presentation people introduce themselves like this:

  1. I myself Naresh and the topic I am going to present is....
  2. Myself Naresh and the topic I am going to present is....
  3. This is Naresh and the topic I am going to present is....

In the above examples, which one is correct? Can I use the word myself, when I am introducing myself to someone?

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  • Ironically, it should be "when I am introducing myself to someone". "I am introducing me" is ungrammatical.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 12:17
  • @RegDwigнt It's not ungrammatical but plainly wrong.;)
    – Noah
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 12:19
  • lol, I get Rejected on interview ! But that person use Myself to introduce himself. i prefer to speak I'm / This is (on phone) and My name to introduce myself to others.
    – Rajamohan S
    Commented Feb 20, 2017 at 2:27

4 Answers 4

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No normal native speaker would say any of those. It would be 'I am Naresh and the topic . . .' or 'My name is Naresh and the topic . . .'

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"Myself Naresh", is typically used in India and by (sadly) a large section of people who have picked English along the way and who definitely lack an intimate knowledge of the language. I still have to meet someone who knows the language well and introduces himself thus.

As Barrie pointed out, the correct usage is, "My name is Naresh..."

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  • 4
    I was speaking of British English, the only variety I really know well. It that's what's used in Indian English, then you can't really say it isn't correct.
    – Barrie England
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 10:03
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    It is not accepted and a speaker shall be typically categorized as a non-speaker.I don't know how to explain this, there is the mainstream Indian-English, very close to British English...and there are the know-nots, who typically use past tense with 'did' because they think in the native language.This is however, not accepted by the educated masses or the 'knows'and "Myself someone", is a know-not phrase and definitely not acceptable.
    – Gurpreet K Sekhon
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 10:18
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    Then you can perhaps regard it as a nonstandard form. Just as there are nonstandard dialects of British English alongside British Standard English, there must be nonstandard dialects of Indian English alongside the Indian standard. The important point about nonstandard dialects is that they are just as linguistically valid as the standard dialect, but they don't have the same social validity.
    – Barrie England
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 10:22
  • @Barrie: Alongside? "Both British Standard English (BrSE) and American Standard English (AmSE) are generally regarded as distinct from other varieties within their respective national ranges, such as dialect or slang. However, norm-sustaining varieties in real life share an imprecise border area with 'non-standard' or 'sub-standard' or 'dialect' varieties, whose elements can also on occasion migrate into a standard text for stylistic or other effect." (Tom McArthur, The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford University Press, 2002)
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 10:51
  • OK, substitute ‘as well as’. McArthur’s point is similar to that in ‘Linguistics: An Introduction’ by Radford and others: ‘Sociolinguistic research has demonstrated that the speech of most people is, at least in some respects, variable, combining, for example, both standard and non-standard sounds, words or grammatical structures.’
    – Barrie England
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 11:36
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All three are problematic, for different reasons.

The first and the second sound like enumerative lists gone wrong:

I, myself, Naresh, and the topic I am going to present went into a bar …

In other words, it sounds like you have four people involved: there’s you, there’s yourself (logically the same person), there’s Naresh (presumably also the same person), and then there’s the topic you’re going to talk about. Which isn’t a person.

In other words, the first two make no sense.

The third is not ungrammatical or even unidiomatic, but it is contextually wrong.

This is Naresh

– follows a pattern very commonly used to identify yourself—on the phone. A presenter about to give a speech, on the other hand, would never introduce himself thusly.

To me, by far the most natural way to phrase this (and the way I’ve heard most scholars introduce themselves when presenting) would be:

My name is Naresh XYZ, and (today) I am going to talk about …

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  • Uh… they're not problematic; they're simply wrong.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 22:31
  • @RobbieGoodwin “This is Naresh” is not wrong per se—it's only wrong in the context given. Being wrong is just one way of being problematic; being inappropriate is another. All three are problematic, but only two are arguably wrong in and of themselves.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 22:36
  • Uh… please recognize if you want to introduce yourself by telephone or radio This is Naresh is wholly acceptable; the usual phrasing. In any context related to this question, This is Naresh has no place.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 0:05
  • @RobbieGoodwin That's precisely what I say in my answer.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 6:33
  • Oh… so you did. Sorry. I was distracted by Being wrong is just one way of being problematic
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 17:57
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Just adding a little about the reasons, and some examples:

Reflexive pronouns want something to refer to reflexively. Contextually, the speaker is there, but, in English, the speaker has not put him- or herself into the sentence context without first naming him- or herself.

So you would never start with myself in proper English.

Well, almost never.

Putting myself in your place, I would not deliberately use this particular pattern unless I had a good reason.

You can (and should) be reflexive in an introductory dependent clause when the reflexive pronoun refers to the subject of the primary sentence.

... which brings us to what the speaker should have been saying in the first two examples in the question:

I would like to introduce myself.

Is a but fluffy, but not wrong. Going from there,

Introducing myself, I am a member of the xyz club.

or

To introduce myself, I would like to tell you about my hobbies.

But both of these feel forced. In English, it is acceptable and preferable to just jump in and introduce yourself:

I am John Brown. I am a member of the xyz club.

I am John Brown. Among my interests ...

(I think I could edit those into the answer above, but I'm not comfortable playing with other people's prose.)

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