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Can I pride anybody except myself?

JuanTwoThree
Can I pride anybody except myself?

I don't think so; not as a transitive verb at any rate. But you can take pride in someone or something else.

This must be one of those times when we have to teach collocation. "He prided himself in his academic standing." "I pride myself in my translation skills." "She prides herself in her IT job."

Hmmm. As far as I know, this verb is only used with the reflexive pronoun. You can only pride yourself. I can only pride myself. They can only pride themselves. Interesting how we use language without paying any attention to it. I never thought about this before. Thanks for bringing it up.

"in", "on" or "for"?

The BNC brings up "on" almost exclusively(there's one "upon").

JuanTwoThree wrote:"in", "on" or "for"?

The BNC brings up "on" almost exclusively(there's one "upon").

Good question. The preposition question is one that concerns me closely, on more topics than just pride. Eventually I will get around to posting a whole thread on this. For now, I think I was thinking of taking pride in something in my last post. The more common formula for priding would be N+pride+reflexive PN+on+sthg.

Sorry for the confusion.