• waitaminute@midwest.social
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    1 day ago

    Disagree. She needs to behave herself. He needs to behave himself. I want to behave myself. They need to behave themselves. We need to behave ourselves. It needs to behave itself.

    So yeah. Can be done.

  • snek_boi@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    As in “nobody acts like you”?

    Or as in “nobody’s words but your own words can guide your behavior”?

    Or as in “nobody but you can describe your own behavior”?

    Something else?

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.caOP
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      2 days ago

      I’m talking about the phrase “behave yourself”. In the English language, there is no such thing as behaving someone else, only behaving yourself. I don’t know if there’s another language where “behave someone else” makes linguistic sense

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    Behave yourself, or I’ll come over there and behave you the hard way.

  • tychosmoose@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    Per Etymonlone: In early modern English it also could be transitive, “to govern, manage, conduct.”

    Comport seems similar in both meaning and reflexivity.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    In spanish it could be translated as “comportarse”

    Yo me comporto Tú te comportas Ella se comporta Nosotros nos comportamos Vosotros os comportáis Ellos se comportan.

    I think they are called reflexive verbs. Because they have to be conjugated with reflexive pronouns.

    If not it would be.

    Yo comporto Tu comportas Ella comporta …

    Which sounds weird as hell. So I suppose you are right also in Spanish.