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12/09/2002: resigned language gripe

Not for the first time I'm thinking that it would be really cool if English had a non-awkward extra pronoun with the function of the "general you," something that can't be confused with the "you" addressing someone directly. Using "one" instead just doesn't always work. Just think of how much hassle, misunderstandings and clarification posts this would prevent. I don't think it would really prevent flamewars, but at least you could get rid of the awkward parentheses saying "with you I mean the general you." I mean other languages have these things, they are really practical. I don't really get why English "chose" that "one" would be uncommon and/or formal. (I see that it is very dubious to ascribe motivations and actions to languages, I mean whatever complicated process it is that leads to these things in languages, however it's shorter to anthropomorphize...) Okay, so English likes to be somewhat sparse in its pronouns, and usually I don't mind that the singular and plural "you" aren't different and that there's no extra polite form, but I miss that impersonal pronoun.

Though maybe I just like more pronouns in general, I regularly miss that "we" (in German as well as in English) offers no distinction whether that "we" includes the person you address or just means you, i.e. the speaker, and a third person. I've heard other languages have this distinction, I think Chinese has, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the languages I learned miss this nifty feature (but then I've learned only quite closely related European languages, so it's not surprising they all miss it).

Posted by RatC @ 10:00 AM CET
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Replies: 1 Comment

Hm. I thought "well, you could use one of the plural forms of you, such as y'all", but that wouldn't really work, either.

I wish "one" was in more common use; it's uncommon enough that I don't usually think of it when I mean "general you".

Posted by laura jv @ 12/09/2002 05:06 PM CET

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