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Showing posts with label one. Show all posts
Showing posts with label one. Show all posts

Thursday, 4 December 2008

What is one to do?

A discussion at dinner tonight raised the subject of how posh people used to talk using the generic pronoun "one" as in -


One would think the airlines would have to close down.
One would think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
The young comedian was awful; one felt embarrassed for him.
If one fails, then one must try harder next time.

I suggested that "one" was more nuanced than commonly thought, in that "one" used by posh people had more the sense that "people like one of us".

What is one to do? - What are people like one of us to do in a situation like this?

Common people don't use it because there is no such assumption of common standards of behaviour and morality.


You would think the airlines would have to close down.
You would think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
The young comedian was awful; you felt embarrassed for him.
If you fail, then you must try harder next time.


do not after all quite have the same ring of subscribing to common standards of perception and morality, and have the subtext of taking the reader or hearer (the "you") into, er, one's confidence and appealing to others' standards of perception and morality.

In our age of moral relativism, it is only to be expected that one now rarely hears this generic pronoun being used.

Mark Parker entertains doubts

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