Talk:One (pronoun)

Classification

What sort of third person singular personal person is the word "one" specifically? I would almost consider it an indefinite pronoun but it does not really fit with the other indefinite pronouns. Should one call it "third person generic", "third person formal", "third person gender neutral" (that doesn't sound good to me) or something else?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.42.77 (talk • contribs) 08:03, 15 November 2006

1st/3rd person

Is one a third person pronoun, I would say it was 1st person as the auther incluses themself, like a general form of we, although it does take the 3rd person sing. form of a verb... Any thoughts? MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 11:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It is definitely third-person singular, indefinite, and ambiguous on animacy.

As a subject in a sentence it functions much like French on or German man, but unlike the French and German forms it can be used as a direct or indirect object or suffixed to become possessive or reflexive (see my modifications).

--Paul from Michigan 07:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Possessive form

I have never seen the possessive form ones except as a typo. Americans have enough difficulty remembering that the possessive form of it is its I have seen the word ones and its possessive ones' in some contexts, as in short for one-dollar bills. such expressions as young ones (children), and ones' place

"In the number 2183.405, the digit 3 is in the ones' place"

The word one has not yet become fully pronominal because it has other uses, such as the number itself. It is in contrast with French on and German man, cognates of nouns homme and Mann, respectively.

--Paul from Michigan 07:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Given the usage of my, our, his, hers, its, etc, I must say that (without actually seeking guidance from external style-guides at all, or even consulted educators on the subject, so I may be assuming wrong), ones is the more consistent version. As a member of the special pronoun series for which every other member has an apostropheless genitive form (often irregular, by modern conventions, but always without an apostrophe), it should not find itself an exception to the recognised exception. Otherwise it might as well be linguistic anarchy. But I am not one to unnecessarily rock boats constructed by more worthy linguistic scholars, so I'll restrict myself to this brief comment. (And I fully appreciate what you said, PfM. Just thought I'd dip my toe in the water to expel a deep-seated feeling. ;) --62.49.25.104 (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Formality and Pomposity

The English language has yet to standardize forms for the indefinite person. Under some circumstances, the use of "one" could be pompous, especially when used as a circumlocution for the first-person singular or first-person plural. Allowing for its indefinite quality with respect to animacy, it seems less awkward than any other expression of gender-free language.

The expression "a person", as it appears in the scene in Guys and Dolls as Adelaide sings about the symptons of the common cold, is pompous (note that her character displays the non-standard confusion of the "oi" and "er" sounds suggests that she is semi-literate).

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul from Michigan (talk • contribs) 02:36, 14 January 2007

The Style section refers to Elizabeth II as "using one in this way", referring to the sentence: "If one chooses to disobey the rules, one must be dealt with.". It is not clear from the text what she is accused of meaning here. As above, she may mean 'I' - which is the usual criticism, or something else. Myrvin (talk) 14:41, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I borrowed one

I don't quite understand the point of this example under reflexives. It follows a sentence about ambiguous context, but I don't understand how this particular sentence could be interpreted any other way. The only two parsings I can come up with resolve to it being understood as indicating the number one.--Shadowdrak 18:38, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Here, I came up with an example to illustrate the ambiguity. We could use the sentences, "If one chooses to disobey the rules, one must be dealt with.", "If only one case is important, only one must be dealt with.", "If an attorney is required, one must be dealt with." I think perhaps this illustrates the distinction well given pretty similar wording, and in each case "one" has a slightly different meaning.--Shadowdrak 18:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the previous example was strange. Yours is much better. Er, no offence, but I'd like to scrap that too: it looks to me like very obviously avoidable poor writing. (Why not: Somebody who chooses to disobey the rules must be dealt with or One of the rules absolutely must be dealt with?) I don't see how it's informative to point out that this or that word can be sloppily used. (If there were an attested example of ambiguity, e.g. a fatally misread telegram, that would be a different matter.) -- Hoary 10:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

"Dative"

Which recent theoretical or advanced descriptive treatment of English talks of ditransitive verbs as taking something in dative case? -- Hoary 10:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

the last example is a bit confusing

as it regards to the word one itself, as a word......

I think something like

"One's job should always be taken seriously"

or something like that, would be clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.173.126.176 (talk) 12:47, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"One ... he ..." construction.

The article currently states:

Some people find the repetitive use of "one" to be stilted so they will use generic "he":

"One can glean from this whatever he may."

"If one were to look at himself, he would see..."

This is considered to be very correct, formal English, but is sometimes cast as sexist. It is strictly stylistic, though if one should want to use it.

I'm a native user of British English, and the use of 'he' to succeed 'one' for the sake of variation seems to me to be entirely incorrect, regardless of issues of apparent sexism. In my experience such a construction is used only by non-British English writers, especially Americans, and a few ill-educated British English writers who ape American uses. 'He' and 'one' are certainly not interchangeable willy-nilly: I've never seen anyone use the reverse switch (*He can glean from this whatever one may.) as elegant variation.

I believe that, at least in British English, the rule is: if you start with 'one', stick with it. If you use generic 'he', stick with it. Don't switch horses in mid-stream!

One can glean from this whatever one may. / He can glean from this whatever he may.

If one were to look at oneself, one would see... / If he were to look at himself, he would see...

--Kay Dekker (talk) 21:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

"(H)omos"

Homo-, properly pronounced 'omo' (short for 'omos') is from Greek meaning "the same" or more informally as "the one".

The derivation does not originate from Latin but rather is a common word used from Hellenika (Greek) and is shared in Latin lexicon.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/homo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.183.31.18 (talk) 04:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Impersonal pronoun

Impersonal pronoun currently redirects to this article, but probably shouldn't. See:

• "impersonal-pronoun noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes". Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
• "impersonal pronoun (noun) definition and synonyms". Macmillan Dictionary. Macmillan Publishers.
  —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:ACE5:1011:8E:599C (talk) 23:08, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

On the other hand, searching Google Books for "impersonal pronoun" seems to turn up mostly cases where it refers to "one" or its equivalents in other languages. In any case, it should probably have its own article, or even be a disambiguation page since it appears to have more than one distinct meaning. W. P. Uzer (talk) 08:56, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Agree; its own article would be best (but that is outside my purview). 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:ACE5:1011:8E:599C (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

It is all so obvious

One ought to see that this 'one' is a distinct word separate from all other ones. It comes from the Germanic (Franconian) man, translated into Latin/French homine/homme, which means 'man'. The Franks ruled France and even gave their name to the country, but took the romance kanguage, French, as their own in France. On is the modern form of the pronoun 'one' and was brought to England by the Normans. Its grammatical usage, meaning, end even its etymology is unique in English. All other meanings of 'one' are unrelated.

On doit voir.... Man soll sehen....

Please someone find specific sources on this and update this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.168.117.154 (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

See WP:NOT#FORUM. This page is not a webboard for airing personal etymological theories. If you think it's sourceable, find and bring the sources.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:06, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Undefined ref

@Brett: you added a ref with the name ":0", but forgot to fill it in. Could you please add your intended source? Thanks. -- Fyrael (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

"*" to mark ungrammaticality

In this edit, SMcCandlish removed the asterisks from Such sentences as *one's is broken; *I sat on one's; *I broke one's; etc. are not found, with the edit summary Linguists' * markup is not generally understood by our readers, and even if it were it would be redundant with "are not found", since they both indicate unattested constructions.

Let's consider this rationale.

First, Linguists' * markup is not generally understood by our readers

True of readers in general, and very likely true even of those wanting to read an article on this unmodish and unglamorous pronoun. But readers can be informed of conventions.

Secondly (and this isn't an exact quotation), Even if * markup were generally understood by our readers it would be redundant with "are not found", since they both indicate unattested constructions.

No, * markup doesn't indicate this. Consider:

• Epitypes smelt raspberries.

I googled for this; I got the mild response "It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search". Indeed, there seem to be none. But with its pattern of an NP, then a transitive verb, and then an NP, it's grammatical. It shouldn't have an asterisk. (Perhaps it should be prefixed with "#" or "^#".) By contrast:

• *Even if it it were would be redundant.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google showed the occasional example of this, "in the wild". We all know that people make typos, and this could be a typo. Even if shown three examples, I'd say it needed its asterisk. (I shouldn't and wouldn't be bone-headed about this: language changes, and so what looks like the deliberate writing by L1 English users of items that strike me as ungrammatical should prompt me to consider whether I'm out of touch with a new development.)

And so I recommend the use, explained for readers, of "*" for the ungrammatical. -- Hoary (talk) 23:41, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Historically speaking, * literally did mean "is not found", but that's not its only meaning today. I too recommend the use, explained for readers, of "*" for the ungrammatical. Added at 01:27, 10 December 2023 by Brett

It did indeed mean that, and in various contexts still does. (One of these contexts is One (pronoun)#History.) I'd be interested to see how this potential ambiguity is handled in an expertly edited introductory book that would have contexts for * meaning the one thing and for * meaning the other; unfortunately, I can't think of any right now. -- Hoary (talk) 02:26, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I have no interest in going over what it meant in linguistics practice to whom at what specific time range. I have a degree in linguistics, and don't need a lecture on it (nor need to lecture anyone about it). The fact of the matter is that it is a specialist practice and should not just be used in running prose about English usage (which has no "official version", and shows a remarkable actual range of usage patterns that vary geographically, by ethnic subculture, by social class, by age group, etc.). Most readers will not understand * markup at all and will be confused by it, thinking it is a reference to some kind of footnote they should go looking for and won't be able to find. If we are going to use it, outside a context of serious linguistics (wherein it might be encountered on things like reconstructed PIE roots) – and articles on English pronouns and their usage are not really linguistics articles but a peripherally related topic of well-attested English usage patterns and prescriptive recommendations in various style guides, then at first occurrence in a section we need to explain what it indicates, either with an introductory note, a foonote, or a {{tooltip}}. But from what I've seen, this is the only article in our entire series on English usage, grammar, punctuation, etc. (I have almost all of them watchlisted) that is attempting to apply the * style, so there is clearly not an actual consensus to do it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:53, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

English indeed has no "official version", but I believe that the majority opinion is that there is such a thing as Standard English, which itself has variations but which can be usefully distinguished from other kinds of English (to which it is of course not superior), and informatively described. I am unaccustomed to any use of the asterisk to some kind of footnote that places the asterisk immediately in front of a sentence, phrase or word. Where in carefully written English-language material might one encounter this? Yes, articles on subjects such as English pronouns have some accretions of prescriptive stuff. As long as these describe the prescriptions rather than propound them, I've no objection to them in principle. (After all, superstitions are themselves of some serious interest.) But numerous academic papers, making no more than fleeting reference to style guides and the like, have been written about English pronouns. (Several books, too. Sample title: The Distribution of Pronoun Case Forms in English.) The actual use of English pronouns, and not just the journalistic and similar chitchat about them, seems to me worth writing up in articles. I don't understand how such articles (or such parts of them) could not, or why they should not, be "serious linguistics". -- Hoary (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Pointing out flaws in your rationale, or correcting overstatements in Hoary's isn't lecturing you on what it means in linguistics.

The MOS for mathematics says, "Use standard notation when possible. If an article requires non-standard or uncommon notation, they should be defined. For example, an article that uses x^n or x**n to denote exponentiation (instead of xn) should define the notations. If an article requires extensive notation, consider introducing the notation as a bulleted list or separating it into a section titled 'Notation'." And the * is certainly standard notation. It doesn't say avoid notation that is unfamiliar to the general reader.

We very widely use unfamiliar notation, such as // for phonology, and [] for phonetics, and the whole IPA.

A bunch of pages linked to from the Grammar series template use the * style. Same for articles as various as French grammar, pied-piping, Indonesian language, and a wide range of others.--Brett (talk) 12:15, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

This has nothing at all to do with mathematics or the style guidelins for that subject. We do routinely adhere to the distinction between // and [] notation, because they are both meaningful to expert readers and not a point of almost-certain confusion for non-expert readers. The non-experts simply don't notice the difference, but they are not triggered into searching around on the page for a footnote that does not exist. The * character is the average reader's experience is a footnote indicator, period. If we're going to use it in article like this then we must explain its use at first occurrence, or we are doing demonstrable harm to the reader experience. The fact that you and a handful of other editors have been adding it without any explanation to articles were is probably do not belong is not a rationale to do it here, per WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS and WP:FAITACCOMPLI. If you want to RfC this, then let's get on with it, but I abosolutely guarantee you that the result will be to either not use this markup in articles like this at all, or to use it only when the use of it is explained one way or another at first occurrence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:24, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad we can agree to its use with an explanation.--Brett (talk) 13:03, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, yes, I'm on board with that. I think I came off as just totally opposed to the idea ever, but I routinely use this markup for it's original intent, in more analytically linguistic circumstances like Proto-Celtic reconstructions. This use of it to indicate substandard or ungrammatical usage rather than unattested constructions is a derived use but not unheard of. We need to be careful, however, of dialectal and colloquial usage, and not mark something as ungrammatical if it's attested in some sector (ethnic, subcultural, regional, historical, etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Definition: a person?

One is an English language, gender-neutral, indefinite pronoun that means, roughly, "a person".

That doesn't seem to be true as long as the meaning "One thing (among a group of others)" also exists. Jack who built the house (talk) 13:22, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Could you elaborate? In what context would you use the meaning "One thing (among a group of others)"? What definition would you propose instead? — W.andrea (talk) 17:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

See wikt:one#Pronoun. "The big one looks good.  I want the green one.". Also: "have a good one".

I've read in the article that in "Those apples look good. Can I have two small ones?", one is actually a pro-form and not a pronoun. This example seems similar to the ones I provided. If it's true that one as a thing is not a pronoun, then the Wiktionary entry should be somehow fixed. And it's really hard to tell that one as a thing is fundamentally different from one as a person, if that's the case. Maybe that should be mentioned in the lead section. Jack who built the house (talk) 17:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yeah, it's actually a pro-form there, so I guess the Wiktionary entry is wrong, though maybe they're using a different definition of "pronoun", IDK.

The difference is explained in the article:

Those apples look good. Can I have two small ones? ... one is a common noun. This should be clear because, unlike pronouns, it readily takes a determiner (two) and an adjective phrase modifier (small), and because its plural form is the usual -s of common nouns.

Try substituting other pronouns into the examples and notice how wrong they sound with determiners/adjectives:

Can I have two small them?

The big she looks good.

I want the green him.

Have a good me.

For the lead, you could maybe add a paragraph like:

The word "one" can also be used as a pro-form, which may be confused with a pronoun.

— W.andrea (talk) 18:50, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I did as you suggested. Thanks. Jack who built the house (talk) 04:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC)