Forum: ell.stackexchange.com
Tags: <sentence-meaning><spoken-english>
Title: 'This is speaking' is correct on the telephone
Question: When you answer the phone, I'm wondering if 'This is speaking' is correct instead of 'This is he speaking.'please tell me the correct expression.

Answers:
sents: text: You wouldn't normally refer to yourself as "this" without using a personal pronoun in the predicate.
text: I usually say, "This is she," but my usage is probably a bit overly correct.
text: Probably, most people say "That's me."
text: (Even though the objective "me" is technically incorrect here.)
text: Regardless, "this is speaking" is neither correct nor natural grammar.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/66098/joiedevivre
score: 20
sents: text: Like @joiedevivre, I was taught from an early age to say This is he , but this is rather formal, deriving from centuries of directive that only nominative pronouns should follow a copula.
text: In practice, this is unnatural for a native speaker; a well-educated person who is careful to state that is he in writing will say that's him in casual conversation and not think twice about it.
text: The nominative forms are nowadays used almost exclusively as subjects.
text: On the other hand, This is he is far better than
text: It is I , which may provoke uncontrollable laughter unless you are quoting the Bible, or perhaps a comic book superhero.
text: There is no single formula for responding to a question like May I speak to Jinsook?
text: or Is Jinsook available?
text: Any of the following might be acceptable:
text: This is Jinsook speaking.
text: You're speaking to Jinsook /
text: You're speaking to her.
text: Jinsook speaking.
text: Speaking.
text: This is Jinsook.
text: This is she.
text: This is.
text: Jinsook here.
text: (not Jinsook is here )
text: I'm Jinsook /
text: I am Jinsook.
text: That would be me.
text: That's me.
text: You can insert Yes in front of any of these, with a pause, and some people will also use them in combination with one another, separated by a pause.
text: Thus, if you have heard other people saying This is speaking , it may have been a conflation of two separate responses that should have been separated:
text: This is, speaking
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/21/choster
score: 9
sents: text: This is speaking in any way sounds incorrect to me.
text: In addition, If you are answering the call, you don't refer yourself as a 'third person!'
text: So, it should be 'This is Jinsook Lee speaking.'
text: However, I'd refrain myself using that, and rather would go with the commonest one:
text: This is Jinsook...
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/3187/Maulik V
score: 6
sents: text: I definitely concur with Bob, and disagree with Maulik V about not using the third person.
text: On the phone is about the only place I find using the third person about me as a natural thing, normally when specifying who in the household or business is "on the phone".
text: "ACME Industries, Ted speaking.
text: " would be a perfectly acceptable opening, as would: "ACME Industries, this is Ted" You could stretch it out by saying: "ACME Industries, this is Ted speaking"
text: but you cannot abbreviate it, by removing the name.
text: "This is he" works as a confirmation of who is on the line, but it is still a bit awkward, but
text: "This is him" is even moreso.
text: Talking on the phone does not always involve natural language.
text: We often use hand gestures while on the phone.
text: While that may be natural, it is not very useful.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/66651/T.E.D.
score: 1
sents: text: I'm going to go out on a limb here.
text: Q: Is this John Smith?
text: A:
text: This is, speaking ... makes perfect sense, but certainly isn't all that common.
text: Simply saying "Speaking."
text: as suggested by @CinCout is what I grew up hearing my father say on the phone, though.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/55730/Will Crawford
score: 1
sents: text: I am a native speaker, and I usually say "This is Bob"...
text: I have heard "speaking" from time to time, and also "this is" but I have never ever heard "this is speaking"
text: the construction does not make any sense without the comma as suggested above, but even that would be extremely rare.
text: In informal situations "it's me" would probably be used, especially with younger people, but in business it would be considered very informal
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/66648/bob
score: 0
sents: text: "This is speaking" sounds completely incorrect to me.
text: I would wonder if I had misheard or missed part of the conversation due to a faulty phone line.
text: "This is ..." would normally be used like:
text: This is fun.
text: This is a knife!
text: Personally I answer the phone with my full name and nothing else, so that the caller knows immediately they have reached me (assuming that is their goal).
text: In your case you could say: Jinsook Lee.
text: Or variants:
text: Jinsook here.
text: Hello, Jinsook here.
text: Jinsook Lee speaking.
text: Once again, don't say "This is speaking".
text: If I heard that I might think you had said "Therese speaking" and wonder if I had dialed the wrong number.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/21223/Nick Gammon
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
"Speaking" and "This is Bob" are often said, but not "this is speaking"  "It's me" is sometimes used in informal situations.
I have heard "speaking" from time to time, and also "this is" but I have never ever heard "this is speaking"