[cranekam]

Definitely agree here. In addition, I am reasonably literate and understand all the uncommon words people use instead of everyday ones but I find reading windy prose is tiring. "I purchased a house", "we utilized the spoon", "Steve and myself are going to the pub" all sound a lot more clumsy and showoff-y than "I bought a house", "we used the spoon", "Steve and I are going to the pub".

[smogcutter]

For what it’s worth, “Steve and myself are going to the pub” is flatly incorrect. Good rule of thumb is that if it you rewrite the sentence with just the pronoun and it sounds wrong, it’s wrong. “Myself is going to the pub” and throwing poor Steve in there doesn’t change that.

[cranekam]

Yeah, I know this one is incorrect. I wasn’t sure whether to include it or not but decided to because I think people generally say it for the same reason as the others: to sound fancy.