If you must use "oneself," it is one word. But there's a better way.

Here is a sentence from the Sunday, September 14, edition of The Birmingham News.

A recent survey found that 82 percent of respondents considered paid sick leave for ones self a "very important" employee benefit.

You need to make a whole series of corrections to get this one right. First of all, if you must refer to "oneself," it is a one-word pronoun. It is also rather old-fashioned. Even if you did write it as two words, it would need an apostrophe (one's self).

Second, if you are speaking about respondents (plural), the word oneself (singular) is not the best pronoun choice anyway. You need to use themselves (plural) as the pronoun to refer back to the respondents, so the sentence should read this way:

A recent survey found that 82 percent of respondents considered paid sick leave for themselves a "very important" employee benefit.

I hope you agree that these changes make this a much smoother and clearer sentence.

I also hope you share this blog with your co-workers who might consider themselves fortunate to meet me through you!