I seem to come across this phrase quite often nowadays, e.g. “Remember that one show, where so and so happened”, or sometimes with a “this”, e.g.: “I was talking to this one guy…”
The “one” seems pretty superfluous, but the phrase seems to have taken on a life of its own. I assume it’s American in origin, and it strikes me as the sort of thing that might come from Friends or Seinfeld or somewhere like that, but does anyone know where it actually originated?
Is it, as I suspect, a fairly recent turn of phrase, or is it just that I’ve not been exposed to it until talking to Americans on teh internets?
It predates Friends, but all Friends episodes were titled “The One…” (e.g., “with the Princess Leia Fantasy”, “…where Ross and Rachel…You Know”, etc.).
That is until the last episode, which got titled “The Last One”.
All Friends episodes were named "The one where/with/when . . . ", but the usage predates the show and the show used this titling as a reflection as how people refer to TV shows long before Friends came along.
Since TV episode titles are often not shown to the audience, the usage began with a conversation similar to:
“I love that Star Trek episode.”
“Which one?”
“The one where they stole Spock’s brain.”
Of course, Star Trek fans would know the name of each episode (and certainly would speak highly of “Spock’s Brain”). But non-geeks would probably use that format.
I’m aware of the Friends titling convention, which is probably why they’re associated in my mind, but it’s not really the same thing.
Talking about “the one where so and so happened” seems natural to my British ear, but the construction I mean is… well, the post that reminded me to ask about it is this one. I know Otto was using it ironically, and it does seem to conjure up a kind of uneducated turn of phrase, but you see it all over.
“We went to see this one movie…”
“I was talking to this one guy…”
“Remember that one time…”
In speech the “one” tends to be stressed, and it always stands out to me as sounding “foreign”. I guess I’m really asking – is it a long-standing American figure of speech, or is it something that has emerged in the last few years?