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Why do people always say "I thought to myself"? Whom else are they going to think to. Isn't "I thought" sufficient enough? You can't even think out loud because if you do, you are actually saying it.

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Type: Question • Score: 5 • Views: 548 • Replies: 7

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@pundit,

It's not a pleonasm. Plato's dialectic involves 2 people talking to each other, but the search for truth is best explained as "the mind talking to itself".

"I thought" has a connotation of randomness, unlike the discipline of dialogue, presumed present in "I though to myself".

Quote:

SOCRATES: I too speak rather in ignorance; I only conjecture. And yet that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most certainly one of them.

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71mo/meno.html

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@pundit,

So I asked myself, "Self, why am I talking to you?"

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@pundit,

pundit wrote:

Why do people always say "I thought to myself"? Whom else are they going to think to. Isn't "I thought" sufficient enough? You can't even think out loud because if you do, you are actually saying it.

It is scientifically correct, I believe, since the "I" is the brain thinking to the "myself" which encompasses the entire person.

It is no different than talking in the third person, "Foofie thought to himself." Also, correct, since Foofie is the part of the brain that has that identify; it is talking to the entire person one thinks of as Foofie.

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I thought to myself, no one will respond to this but each of you did and each of you was able to come up with some BS as to why. Thanks for trying though.

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@pundit,

Pandit - you are wrong on all counts except one: the meaning of your name in Sanskrit.
http://vedabase.net/p/pandita

Quote:

thinking himself to be very learned

Of course you'd think you know a lot more than ole Plato <G>

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@pundit,

pundit wrote:

Why do people always say "I thought to myself"?

they don't *always* say that, but sometimes they sing it. for instance,

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

to retain the melody, you'd have to add 3 syllables to replace *to myself*

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@pundit,

Saying it that way emphasises the private nature of the act.

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