Presidential pronouns: Is it all about him?

[Modbert]

Presidential pronouns: Is it all about him? | The Economist

OVER at the Corner, the main group blog of the National Review, two writers (Mark Steyn and Elliot Abrams) and many commenters have complained that Barack Obama was too free with the first-person singular last night; specifically, that his use of "I", "me" and "my" claimed too much credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Since Mark Liberman hasn't gotten to it yet as he usually does (their servers seem to be down at Language Log), here are my counts for Mr Obama's announcement:

I: 9
me: 2
my: 3

Is that a lot or a little, in 1,389 words in this context?

Numbers this small don't tell us much. But just a few more data points: here's Mr Obama with the first person plural:

we: 37
us: 7
our: 46

For those who seemed to think that every other word the President was saying was about him. 14 words out of 1,389 is a whopping 1%.

 

[TheBrain]

Obama deserves all the credit for being the guy in charge when the bastard was killed, BUT a good leader NEVER claims such credit as his own. NOT EVER.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Depends on context of course.