preposition + plural reflexive – English Grammar Profiler

The actors are beside themselves with excitement.

Bedazzled

The phrase “beside themselves” is an idiom, which means that it has a figurative meaning that is different from its literal meaning. In the literal sense, the phrase means to be physically beside oneself or to be in a different location from oneself. However, in the figurative sense, the phrase means to be so overcome with emotion that one is almost out of control.  The actors are so excited that they are almost out of control, and they may be acting in a way that is not typical of them. For example, they may be jumping up and down, shouting, or laughing uncontrollably.

At B2 in the English Grammar Profile, point 94 in the category of PRONOUNS is defined as:

plural reflexive pronouns after prepositions where the object of the preposition is the same as the subject of the verb.

Point 88 in the same category is:

plural reflexive pronouns with ‘by’ to mean alone, without any help.

*Note this point is practically already covered in B2 Point 80,  and the complexity checker may highlight B2 point 74 for ‘yourselves’ for politeness, also.  We also found that ‘each other’ has its own point at B1.

There are hundreds of examples of these iWeb ngrams for _ii _ppx2 in PELIC.  Here, for each Ngram, we start at the beginning of the PELIC corpus and take the first correctly used example:

1 TO EACH 168918

They never talk to each other, even in the elevator.

Chinese, Female, Level 5, writing class

2 FROM EACH 59237

I think the teenagers in Saudi Arabia are different from each other.

Arabic, Male, Level 3, Writing Class

3 TO THEMSELVES 46223

Money can not buy happiness ; I suggest that people who have a synesthesia must have rejoiced in who they are, even though they prefer to keep their secrets to themselves.

Chinese, Female, level 4, reading class

*note there were many errors in the usage of ‘to themselves’ before getting to this example.

4 AGAINST EACH 40723

They both obviously are playing a different game against each other.

Arabic, Female, level 5, writing class

*NEXT WE SKIP SOME TO GET DIFFERENT PREPOSITIONS OR PRONOUNS:

5 BY THEMSELVES 40208 6 AT EACH 31304 7 ABOUT THEMSELVES 26868

8 IN THEMSELVES 26035

9 TO OURSELVES 24287

We have to say to ourselves:

“I do not yet know what I carry in my heart,

but I trust that it will emerge as I write.”

Taiwanese, Female, level 4, writing class

10 ON EACH 22310 11 OF EACH 18068 12 INTO EACH 14984 13 AMONG THEMSELVES 13068 14 ON THEMSELVES 12419 15 ABOUT OURSELVES 10869 16 IN EACH 10518 17 ABOUT EACH 10008 18 UPON THEMSELVES 7867 19 IN OURSELVES 7659 20 BETWEEN THEMSELVES 6633 21 ON OURSELVES 6522 22 BY OURSELVES 5856 23 OVER EACH 5668 24 AMONGST THEMSELVES 5253 25 OFF EACH 5136 26 AROUND EACH 5083 27 TOWARDS EACH 4743 28 WITHIN THEMSELVES 4623 29 WITH EACH 4434 30 FROM THEMSELVES 4175 31 AFTER THEMSELVES 4022 32 WITHIN OURSELVES 3964 33 OVER THEMSELVES 3866 34 OF OURSELVES 3637 35 FROM OURSELVES 3436 36 TOWARD EACH 3286 37 OF THEMSELVES 3214 38 AT THEMSELVES 3126 39 NEAR EACH 3103 40 TO YOURSELVES 2955 41 BETWEEN EACH 2907 42 LIKE THEMSELVES 2736 43 AT OURSELVES 2659 44 UPON EACH 2531 45 ALONGSIDE EACH 2505 46 LIKE OURSELVES 2483 47 UNTO THEMSELVES 2344 48 BY EACH 2257 49 AS OURSELVES 2252 50 UPON OURSELVES 2077 51 AFTER EACH 1961 52 AGAINST THEMSELVES 1860 53 PAST EACH 1834 54 BETWEEN OURSELVES 1826 55 AS THEMSELVES 1803 56 AMONG OURSELVES 1644 57 LIKE EACH 1432 58 INTO THEMSELVES 1314

59 BESIDE EACH 1281

60 AMONG YOURSELVES 1133 *not in PELIC

61 AMONGST EACH 1109 62 AMONGST OURSELVES 1082 63 AROUND THEMSELVES 1064 64 THAN THEMSELVES 1047 65 AMONG EACH 1019 66 AFTER OURSELVES 884 67 THROUGH EACH 880 68 INCLUDING OURSELVES 826 69 OPPOSITE EACH 810

70 ONTO EACH 805

71 LIKE YOURSELVES 788 *not in PELIC

72 BEYOND THEMSELVES 784
73 INTO OURSELVES 748

74 BY YOURSELVES 727

If you love to travel by yourselves,

you can find information on the Internet.

Thai, Female, level 5, writing class