The actors are beside themselves with excitement.
The phrase “beside themselves” is an idiom, which means that it has a figurative meaning that is different from its literal meaning. In the literal sense, the phrase means to be physically beside oneself or to be in a different location from oneself. However, in the figurative sense, the phrase means to be so overcome with emotion that one is almost out of control. The actors are so excited that they are almost out of control, and they may be acting in a way that is not typical of them. For example, they may be jumping up and down, shouting, or laughing uncontrollably.
At B2 in the English Grammar Profile, point 94 in the category of PRONOUNS is defined as:
plural reflexive pronouns after prepositions where the object of the preposition is the same as the subject of the verb.
Point 88 in the same category is:
plural reflexive pronouns with ‘by’ to mean alone, without any help.
*Note this point is practically already covered in B2 Point 80, and the complexity checker may highlight B2 point 74 for ‘yourselves’ for politeness, also. We also found that ‘each other’ has its own point at B1.
There are hundreds of examples of these iWeb ngrams for _ii _ppx2 in PELIC. Here, for each Ngram, we start at the beginning of the PELIC corpus and take the first correctly used example:
1 TO EACH 168918
Chinese, Female, Level 5, writing class
2 FROM EACH 59237
I think the teenagers in Saudi Arabia are different from each other.
Arabic, Male, Level 3, Writing Class
3 TO THEMSELVES 46223
Money can not buy happiness ; I suggest that people who have a synesthesia must have rejoiced in who they are, even though they prefer to keep their secrets to themselves.
Chinese, Female, level 4, reading class
*note there were many errors in the usage of ‘to themselves’ before getting to this example.
4 AGAINST EACH 40723
They both obviously are playing a different game against each other.
Arabic, Female, level 5, writing class
*NEXT WE SKIP SOME TO GET DIFFERENT PREPOSITIONS OR PRONOUNS:
5 BY THEMSELVES 40208
6 AT EACH 31304
7 ABOUT THEMSELVES 26868
8 IN THEMSELVES 26035
9 TO OURSELVES 24287
Taiwanese, Female, level 4, writing class
10 ON EACH 22310
11 OF EACH 18068
12 INTO EACH 14984
13 AMONG THEMSELVES 13068
14 ON THEMSELVES 12419
15 ABOUT OURSELVES 10869
16 IN EACH 10518
17 ABOUT EACH 10008
18 UPON THEMSELVES 7867
19 IN OURSELVES 7659
20 BETWEEN THEMSELVES 6633
21 ON OURSELVES 6522
22 BY OURSELVES 5856
23 OVER EACH 5668
24 AMONGST THEMSELVES 5253
25 OFF EACH 5136
26 AROUND EACH 5083
27 TOWARDS EACH 4743
28 WITHIN THEMSELVES 4623
29 WITH EACH 4434
30 FROM THEMSELVES 4175
31 AFTER THEMSELVES 4022
32 WITHIN OURSELVES 3964
33 OVER THEMSELVES 3866
34 OF OURSELVES 3637
35 FROM OURSELVES 3436
36 TOWARD EACH 3286
37 OF THEMSELVES 3214
38 AT THEMSELVES 3126
39 NEAR EACH 3103
40 TO YOURSELVES 2955
41 BETWEEN EACH 2907
42 LIKE THEMSELVES 2736
43 AT OURSELVES 2659
44 UPON EACH 2531
45 ALONGSIDE EACH 2505
46 LIKE OURSELVES 2483
47 UNTO THEMSELVES 2344
48 BY EACH 2257
49 AS OURSELVES 2252
50 UPON OURSELVES 2077
51 AFTER EACH 1961
52 AGAINST THEMSELVES 1860
53 PAST EACH 1834
54 BETWEEN OURSELVES 1826
55 AS THEMSELVES 1803
56 AMONG OURSELVES 1644
57 LIKE EACH 1432
58 INTO THEMSELVES 1314
59 BESIDE EACH 1281
60 AMONG YOURSELVES 1133 *not in PELIC
61 AMONGST EACH 1109
62 AMONGST OURSELVES 1082
63 AROUND THEMSELVES 1064
64 THAN THEMSELVES 1047
65 AMONG EACH 1019
66 AFTER OURSELVES 884
67 THROUGH EACH 880
68 INCLUDING OURSELVES 826
69 OPPOSITE EACH 810
70 ONTO EACH 805
71 LIKE YOURSELVES 788 *not in PELIC
72 BEYOND THEMSELVES 784
73 INTO OURSELVES 748
74 BY YOURSELVES 727
If you love to travel by yourselves,
you can find information on the Internet.
Thai, Female, level 5, writing class