# Why did "one" as a pronoun drop out of use? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 3, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396 "2014-02-03T03:23:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/21 "2014-02-03T22:54:24Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > That was my sense; that Brits were more likely to use “one” than Americans. Not that I’ve noticed, anyway. I like “one” because it avoids so much ambiguity, but I often find myself avoiding it because, like “whom”, using it can lead to negative perceptions. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/22 "2014-02-03T23:01:44Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > This is relatively easy to avoid. For example, what you are actually saying in you final sentence is that “it would be nice if I could say what I thought without having to add [a disclaimer].” Or possibly “it would be nice if everyone could say what they thought without having to add [a disclaimer].” Or even “it would be nice if people could say what they thought without having to add [a disclaimer].” All of these work fine. > > Examples from a [website](http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/one.htm) explaining the use of “one”: > [ul] > [li]“One would think the airlines would have to close down.” Clearly a statement of what the speaker thinks, so easily replaced with “I.”[/li][li]“The young comedian was awful; one felt embarrased for him.” “I” would work here, too, but a better replacement would be “everyone.”[/li][li]“If one fails, then one must try harder next time.” “One” is actually horrible here, since it could refer to a number. While “you” would be the most natural replacement, since we are dealing with an aphorism, “someone/they” works well enough.[/li][/ul] > > That website says that the replacement with “you” is an American thing. Is the use of “one” as an informal general pronoun that much more common in British or International English? The context I’m thinking of is well, here: > [@Vicious Dogs might escape leashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vicious-dogs-might-escape-leashes/680323/127): > > I think that if you (a generic you) are going to come in close proximity to something frequently in life that you are concerned about, it would behoove you to learn something about it. If you live in an area where lots of people have dogs, or you walk in a park that has play areas for dogs than it’s to your own benefit to be able to spot problems before they happen, and not cause problems inadvertently yourself. > … This is from a somewhat contentious topic in the Pit. I wanted to make a point using one person’s quote, but I didn’t want to attack that person specifically, just use their quote as a handy reference to what several people were saying. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/23 "2014-02-04T05:49:03Z")
I do not think it has “dropped out of use” at all. It has never been used all that commonly, but it is useful sometimes, and still _is_ used. I certainly hope it does not drop out of use altogether. We do not need the expressive possibilities of the language to be diminished. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/24 "2014-02-04T06:14:00Z")
I still see it in print occasionally, but I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say it. > [@kunilou](#): > > [A] phrase like “It would be nice if one could say what one thought,” pretty much guarantees a follow-up of “One what?” I don’t see any good reason why _we_ can’t use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ in a general sense. Compare: I don’t see any good reason why _one_ can’t use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ in a general sense. It would be nice if we\* could say what we thought. (\*or “we all”, if you like) It would be nice if everyone could say what they thought. As for phrases like: “One does not simply walk into Mordor”, why not “You cannot simply walk into Mordor”? or “No one can just _walk_ into Mordor.” And so on. “One does…” sounds stuffy and archaic, especially when there are plenty of perfectly good pronouns available. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/25 "2014-02-04T06:23:28Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Yes, although **the French “on” is derived from “homme” (“man”)**, while the usual word for “one” in French is “un/une”, so it doesn’t have the “one what?” problem as in English. Wow, I sure didn’t know _that_. For reals? I always thought (that is, I always assumed) that the French “on” was, at its roots, the same word as “un/une”, meaning “one”; and that the two words “on” and “un/une” had simply diverged from a common root, whereas the English “one” remained the same word with the two variant meanings. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/26 "2014-02-04T06:25:06Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > I found it very useful in French as it saved me having to conjugate the verb. > **One uses it here when one can.** But two can use it twice as much! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/27 "2014-02-04T06:26:59Z")
[del]I’d[/del] One would like to suggest that we start an active and vociferous, perhaps even militant, campaign to popularize the use of “one” as a pronoun in English (particularly American English), but [del]I think[/del] one thinks that’s against Board rulz. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/28 "2014-02-04T07:38:59Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > [del]I’d[/del] One would like to suggest that we start an active and vociferous, perhaps even militant, campaign to popularize the use of “one” as a pronoun in English (particularly American English), but [del]I think[/del] one thinks that’s against Board rulz. 🆒 One can’t be TWO sure.,… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/29 "2014-02-04T08:17:47Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Wow, I sure didn’t know _that_. For reals? Yup. I believe German has a parallel construction:“Mann…”. (Which, to our ears, sounds like Abbie Hoffman talking: "The Man just wants you to be a number in the corporate machine! ;)) ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/30 "2014-02-04T08:31:34Z")
[Here is a a quick explanation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sme4BaANIxg) of the use of “one.” ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/31 "2014-02-04T14:06:54Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Yup. I believe German has a parallel construction:“Mann…”. Actually, that’s “man” (one n, lowercase m). “Mann” (two n’s, uppercase m) means “man.” Man darf nicht “man” genau wie “Mann” buchstabieren. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/32 "2014-02-04T14:49:42Z")
> [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](#): > > I still see it in print occasionally, but I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say it. > > I don’t see any good reason why _we_ can’t use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ in a general sense. > > Compare: > > I don’t see any good reason why _one_ can’t use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ in a general sense. > > It would be nice if we\* could say what we thought. (\*or “we all”, if you like) > > It would be nice if everyone could say what they thought. > > As for phrases like: “One does not simply walk into Mordor”, why not “You cannot simply walk into Mordor”? or “No one can just _walk_ into Mordor.” And so on. “One does…” sounds stuffy and archaic, especially when there are plenty of perfectly good pronouns available. There are thousands of things we could drop from English and rephrase. If we did, it could go from being one of the most potentially interesting languages to a very boring one. I wouldn’t be surprised if we could drop 75% of words because they have synonyms. We could probably drop “synonym” because that sounds a little “stuffy” too. Why must there be a relentless pressure on us all to appear less articulate, less educated, than we really are? That’s what it means when words sound “stuffy”, really - that the writing hasn’t been sufficiently dumbed-down enough for people who can’t even read as far as The Council of Elrond anyway. You can probably find a way to rephrase any sentence to avoid using the word “one”, but you can’t always maintain the same level of meaning and elegance when you replace it. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/33 "2014-02-04T15:17:14Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Actually, that’s “man” (one n, lowercase m). > > “Mann” (two n’s, uppercase m) means “man.” > > Man darf nicht “man” genau wie “Mann” buchstabieren. Danke! So, like in the French situation, it has diverged a bit from its root – but not as much as in French. Hijack: Has there been a feminist movement in Germany to discontinue the use of “man” (the impersonal pronoun)? If so, with what? Something new, or some existing alternative? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/34 "2014-02-04T16:49:07Z")
[Sheldon Cooper] Incidentally, one can get beaten up in school simply by referring to oneself as “one”. [/Sheldon Cooper] ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/35 "2014-02-04T17:54:20Z")
I use it more frequently in writing than I do in speaking, but I do use it aloud as well. It’s situationally useful when one is speaking generally and might wish to avoid both “I”, as being too personally specific , and “you”, as being too ambiguously specific. ---
**Author:** ![Marlonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Marlonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlonius)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/36 "2014-02-04T20:44:34Z")
I’m a big advocate of using the pronoun “one”. It has its proper use and most people are ignorant of it and use “you” instead. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/37 "2014-02-04T22:14:22Z")
> [@saje](#): > > The context I’m thinking of is well, here: > > This is from a somewhat contentious topic in the Pit. I wanted to make a point using one person’s quote, but I didn’t want to attack that person specifically, just use their quote as a handy reference to what several people were saying. Well, on this website, you can just use “one” and people won’t give a crap. But it looks like you could have used “people” if you needed to: _I think that if people are going to come in close proximity to something frequently in life that they are concerned about, it would behoove them to learn something about it. For those who live in an area where lots of people have dogs, or who walk in a park that has play areas for dogs, it’s to their own benefit to be able to spot problems before they happen, and not cause problems inadvertently themselves._ This sort of thing is exactly what I had to do in one English class in high school, as both “you” and “one” were discouraged. Sometimes it did make things a little awkward, and I’d wind up just rewriting it, but often the sentence(s) actually winds up sounding better. And, anyways, in the Pit, someone would have thought you were talking about them and got offended no matter how you said it. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/38 "2014-02-04T23:34:19Z")
One may find that some consider such usage to be highly annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/39 "2014-02-05T05:50:22Z")
> [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](#): > > As for phrases like: “One does not simply walk into Mordor”, why not “You cannot simply walk into Mordor”? or “No one can just _walk_ into Mordor.” And so on. “One does…” sounds stuffy and archaic, especially when there are plenty of perfectly good pronouns available. Yes! Just think how much popular, and therefore better, _LOTR_ had been if the author had eschewed all this creaky constructions and obsolete vocabulary. Tolkien could have made millions, but then the movies would have already been made fifty years ago and the SFX would have been laughable. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396/40 "2014-02-06T22:00:56Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Note also, Cecil uses “one” like this quite regularly. I noted that Cecil is a regular user of “one” as a pronoun. Most obligingly, his column posted today, [What’s the meaning of “Ollie, Ollie oxen go free”?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1102/whats-the-meaning-of-ollie-ollie-oxen-go-free), June 22, 1990, provides us with an example, in which he uses “one” as a pronoun _three times_ in a single sentence: > [@](#): > > One might inquire into the meaning of “spuggy,” but one isn’t sure sure one wants to know. To be sure, in another sentence in there, he uses the generic “you” twice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-one-as-a-pronoun-drop-out-of-use/680396.md?page=3)