We've all done it. You've done it, admit it. I know I do it. You are mid-spiel to your nine-year-old daughter, explaining why she really needs to speed up on that chore you gave her a half hour ago, and out it slithers--something like this: "And Mommy still needs to go to the store today and if you don't finish up in time you can't go with...you can't go along with...you...." Shplod goes that sentence.
In the ensuing hush you always ask yourself what happened. How did an articulate person like yourself end up stuck in a sentence from which there is no exit except to refer to yourself (yourself, got that?) as her?
As a side note, it is obviously the length that kills it. Three words, four words, it's all good. You can still be going strong at seven words or eight. But an illeism has got to be short in order to fly. Don't talk to Mommy like that. Can you wave at Daddy? Let it grow to a paragraph's length, and its life is over. You will wake up with a start from your mental fog and realize the truth: you, like the rest of us parents, are an illeist.
