Why do people talk in the third person?

Maybe she just thought it was kinda funny when she started, then it turned into an unshakable compulsive habit. Everytime she says it you should do the same with your name and maybe she will get annoyed and not do it herself anymore. :P

It’s not as bad as someone who says dot com at the end of everything dot com, It is probably one of the best ways of annoying people I know dot com. Poisonedantidote tends to do this a lot dot com, specially when he is talking in third person dot com.

She just has an odd sense of humor that she may enjoy, but others do not.

Lol…What @Imadethisupwithnoforethought said.

We are not amused.

They’re killing independent George!

It’s been my experience that people that do this have HUGE egos. They’re in love with themselves and can’t stop announcing to the world every little damn thing they do.

rebbel would get crazy from Terry.

It may be an idea to copy her behaviour for a while (when she is around), she might see what a stupid way to talk it actually is.

It’s a symptom of certain types of mental disorders. Just thought I’d throw that in there.

Or a symptom of being a pretentious douche (as in a lesser member of royalty or something.)
:D
Take your pick.

@Dan

Just for curiosity, which mental disorder would that be? I’ve never heard of that, but I’m always up for learning something new, seriously.

@Buttonstc Mostly those having to do with cognitive problems, particularly centering around linguistic or identification problems. But it’s been years since college, and I’ve done far better keeping up with anthropology than psychology, so I forget the particular names. :)

@chyna , that just makes me NUTS! And when she couples it with inane chatter and announcements it’s amazing you don’t smack her. I would…..

LOL! A friend does this. It took awhile before it sunk in that he was talking about himself and not another person, as his name isn’t uncommon. Considering I only know one, this won’t be helpful, but his personality sort of fits in with what @FutureMemory posted. He really cares about others, so I’m willing to put up with the habit. It would be really interesting to know how this starts though.

Pretentious arseholes.

@Lightlyseared talks about @Lightlyseared in the third person because she likes to be an annoying bastard.

Janbb doesn’t know.

Talk like yoda do they, hmmmmm!

The Mouse does this because it makes her feel very cool and extremely important. That is the same reason The Mouse puts “the” in front of her name sometimes. The Mouse also knows that whenever anyone sees this, they think she is the coolest, superest Mouse ever.

Can you shoot them and get away with it?

Sometimes I do it, because with all the me’s it just doesn’t feel right to say I, so I say We

If you’re close enough to her, could you flat out ask her why she refers to herself in the third person? Tell her, “Chyna has had just about enough of that crap.” ;)

Perhaps she has trouble remembering her name, and speaking in third person helps her to reduce the chances of her forgetting it.

Or it could be that she has more than one person in her head, and Terry is the one that’s your coworker, whereas it’s her George that likes to go to the strip club after work.

All great and funny answers. I have to be careful with this as I am still a temp with the company and hoping to get on full time.

Well you’re a temp, it’s not like your vested.

Chyna needs the full time job if they ever offer it to her.

See how freakin’ annoying that sounds?

Well if you off her you get three hots and a cot.

@chyna That’s so annoying I might shoot you.

Just poke her in the eye.BOOP!

Cruiser would be happy to give you an answer here but Cruiser is busy putting kids to bed and getting chores done so he can go to bed. ;)

I’ve known a few people who did this now and then, in a cutesy kind of way; for example, “Tonya has to toddle off now. It’s her bedtime.” I thought they were imitating Mommyspeak, which positively makes me gag.

Does Terry by any chance have small children? Or maybe they’re grown and she still speaks to them like this: “No, sweetheart, Mommy doesn’t want you to do that. Mommy wants you to pick up your toys now. Do you want Mommy to read to you? Here, Mommy will give you a cookie. Give Mommy a kiss.” What kind of model is that? What in the world is wrong with a mother’s saying “I”? How does she expect her kids to speak about themselves when they’re learning from her?

Maybe little Terry learned to talk from one of those Mommies and grew up saying “Tewwy wants a cookie. Tewwy wuvs Mommy. Tewwy gots an owie.” Now it’s “Terry has a meeting in fifteen minutes. Terry is going to get some coffee. Terry has an appointment with her shrink.”

Bad Terry. Terry gets a timeout. Terry shuts up now.

My recommendation is that you set a cleverly disguised bear trap, and when you catch them, ask them what happened to that stupid Terry who used to have the cubicle next to you. Did the corporate bear trap catch her, haha? Then keep on talking about her as if she wasn’t there. For as long as it takes.

Did you see that Terry? Wasn’t it funny when she got trapped? The ambulance came to take her to the hospital, but they couldn’t figure out who she was because she never answered a direct question in her own name.

Does Chyna wanna borrow Chocolate’s shovel? It has experience with beheadings…

Downtide thinks it is silly and would never be caught dead referring to himself in the third person.

@downtide is obviously not tempted to write his own obituary. Jeruba confesses that she has thought about it.

rebbel’s brother says that rebbel has no idea how to tackle this problem.

JilltheTooth’s daughter is amused by this, yet also irritated. JilltheTooths says “arf” on the subject.

@Jeruba Downtide never thought about writing his own obituary but he did once write his own mini-biography in third-person when he had an article published. He thought that was silly too.

oops. JilltheTooth’s DOG says arf…

@JilltheTooth‘s dog sort of resembles Chocolate’s dog.

You might try responding in kind, as if Terry were absent: when she says “Terry wants to know if you’re going to the meeting,” reply “Please tell Terry that I am. Is she?”