This is strange.
"The day was initiated in 2006 by someone called Russell. David was able
to find a web site about it, but it has entries only up to 2008, so
perhaps enthusiasm waned thereafter. The day remains recognized, though,
in websites that collect holidays." (Crystal)

Notice that in the above, Crystal is performing an example of "talking
in third person", by using his name (David) in place of the pronoun "I".
But in his general acount of what T3P is, he refers only to pronouns --
replacing "I" with "he" (or your favourite pronoun of the day). This
left me confused. Of course, if he had extended his performance,
pronouns would have had to come into it: "David thought he would find
someone to tell him about T3P..." But starting right in with "he"
(rather than "David") would produce a much stranger effect.

Even stranger:
"Third person expression has a long linguistic history, especially in
such varieties as sports commentary and legal prose." Huh? Anybody else
noticed this?

"It's a common choice of novelists...", and he proceeds to quote the
opening lines of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". ???? Jane Austen
is not a character in this book, so how could she be using T3P? The two
characters introduced in this opening section (Mr and Mrs Bennet) are
referred to in the third person, of course. How else? I know there are
novels that have a first-person narrator, making the writer a character.
But that's not T3P.
(Sorry, folks, literature is not my strong subject; maybe somebody can
explain this.)

Moving on...
I found one of those "websites that collect holidays":

https://nationaltoday.com/talk-in-third-person-day/

It's a crappy-looking site, with text that must have been written by an
early AI-bot. But it gave me the word "illeism".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism

"Illeism (/ˈɪli.ɪzəm/; from Latin ille: “he; that man”) is the act of
referring to oneself in the third person instead of first person. It is
sometimes used in literature as a stylistic device. In real-life usage,
illeism can reflect a number of different stylistic intentions or
involuntary circumstances."

The effects/intentions/involuntary circumstances mentioned are:

(i) an air of objective impartiality (examples: Caesar's Gallic Wars and
Xenophon's Anabasis, both narratives of real events in which the author
took part, but written in the third person)

(ii) idiocy (examples: Mongo in "Blazing Saddles", Elmo in "Sesame
Street", the latter described as "childlike")
I believe self-reference using just one's name is characteristic of some
very small children, who understand names, but haven't mastered any
pronouns yet; and of primates who have learned some language-like
system, but never get the trick of the "I/you" words.

Anyway, there's an enormous list of more or less famous people who
talked this way (or were said to, or did so on one occasion). A lot of
them, it seems to me, are people who have developed a public persona
different from themselves, about which they can talk detachedly in the
third person.

Fun? Not to me. But a little more interesting than I thought.

Op 3/03/2024 om 11:31 schreef Ross Clark:
> This is strange.
> "The day was initiated in 2006 by someone called Russell. David was able
> to find a web site about it, but it has entries only up to 2008, so
> perhaps enthusiasm waned thereafter. The day remains recognized, though,
> in websites that collect holidays." (Crystal) [...]

IIRC Gollum uses it, "it".

It can replace both "I" and "you".
With friends in our Flemish conversation we may complete a somewhat
strong statement we, or the other, have just made, with an ironic "said
he". My friend even likes to expand on it: "said he, after which he shut
up", or "after which he took cover", or "after which he farted loudly",
etc.
But I'm sure I've seen it done in English too, and similar in French.

--
guido wugi

On 2024-03-03, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:

> "The day was initiated in 2006 by someone called Russell. David was able
> to find a web site about it, but it has entries only up to 2008, so
> perhaps enthusiasm waned thereafter. The day remains recognized, though,
> in websites that collect holidays." (Crystal)

Two examples well known in German popular culture:

* Apache chief Winnetou (at least in the German dub) of those 1960s
Karl May movie adaptations keeps referring to himself in the third
person: "Winnetou must do... The chief of the Apache has to..."

* The late West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt also had this habit:
"The chancellor will make his decision..." Supposedly he did this
to separate the political function and his person.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> On 2024-03-03, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:

>> "The day was initiated in 2006 by someone called Russell. David was able
>> to find a web site about it, but it has entries only up to 2008, so
>> perhaps enthusiasm waned thereafter. The day remains recognized, though,
>> in websites that collect holidays." (Crystal)

> someone called Russell.

in US English, this is: [someone named Russell] or [a certain Russell] etc.

> Two examples well known in German popular culture:

> * Apache chief Winnetou (at least in the German dub) of those 1960s
> Karl May movie adaptations keeps referring to himself in the third
> person: "Winnetou must do... The chief of the Apache has to..."

> * The late West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt also had this habit:
> "The chancellor will make his decision..." Supposedly he did this
> to separate the political function and his person.

Simon Says is a children's game for three or more players. One player takes the role of "Simon" and issues instructions to the other players, which should be followed only when prefaced with the phrase "Simon says".

Methinks.... The word is archaic now and means “it seems to me.” It was a proper word in Old English (me thyncth) and we can see it used in historical documents even in formal settings, but this is no longer the case in Modern English. It shouldn't be a word to avoid, especially if you have the wordsmithing skills to make it play. ----------- make it play (make it work)