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Mind your language

Illeism: the weird habit of talking about oneself in the third person

12 January 2019

9:00 AM

12 January 2019

9:00 AM

Someone has been putting about reports that Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, refers to himself in the third person as ‘the Sajid’ or ‘the Saj’. This habit has a long history.

Xenophon entered his own Anabasis 2,400 years ago with the words: ‘There was in that host a certain man, an Athenian, Xenophon.’

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