Talk:Generic you

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[edit] "a person"

Instead of the "generic you" or "one," some people use "a person," as in "A person might get into movies by working in television." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk) 16:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Paragraph about singular they

I removed the last paragraph, on the singular they. I wouldn't mind if someone were to add it back in the course of saying more about the generic you, but as it is, an entry in the See Also: list seemed enough. - 67.164.12.169 09:17, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Russian ты

Would it be appropriate for me to mention the corresponding phenomenon in Russian, which uses the second-person plural ты (equivalent to French or Spanish tu) in the same way as the generic you in English? For example, the famous proverb "За двумя зайцами погонишься, ни одного не поймаешь" (Za dvumya zaitsami pogonish'sya, ni odnogo ne poimayesh' -- "If you chase two rabbits, you won't catch either") can be translated literally into English, and the generic ты becomes the generic you. (The word ты happens not to appear in this passage, but the verbs are conjugated to agree with it.)

The article claims that the phrase "generic you" only applies to English, but I can't think of any reason that must be true. Tesseran 22:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the article should definitely be primarily about the use of you (the English pronoun) as a generic pronoun, but I don't see why we can't mention other languages.

That said, one characteristic of English you is that it can be used in circumstances where it can't possibly be interpreted with a second-person sense; for example, you could tell a man, "when you're pregnant, hormones have a lot of influence over your emotions," or you could say "in ancient Rome, you couldn't go twenty feet without seeing a man in a toga." Is this true of Russian as well?

Ruakh 22:19, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, you can use ты, which as I mentioned is the familiar pronoun, in this way even if you're speaking to someone with whom you would use вы, the formal pronoun. So even if you're talking to your boss, or the president -- people with whom it would be incredibly rude to use ты -- you can give examples like the above without giving offense. I don't know whether it can be used in impossible hypotheticals like "when you're pregnant"; I'll try to find out.

I guess I unconsciously used the generic 'you' here; since it seems that you (Ruakh) don't speak Russian, assumedly it's inaccurate to say that you can use ты with anyone. =) Tesseran 07:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formal English problem

I find it hilarious that the article on "generic you" does not follow the formal English standard of not using the generic you. Bayerischermann 21:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The article states that one "is infrequently used outside the most formal styles", and I don't think anyone thinks Wikipedia should be in the most formal style (for example, it shouldn't be written nearly as formally as a business letter to someone one hasn't met), so I don't think it's all that unreasonable for it to use the generic you. Further, I think your generic one looks very out of place where you put it. Fixed. Ruakh 03:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for making it sound better for a general audience. But please remember that the generic you does not belong on Wikipedia, as expressed in this template message:

This article or section uses first- or second-person inappropriately or excessively. Please edit this article to use the more formal tone expected of an encyclopedia, per Wikipedia's style guidelines. (help, talk)

Bayerischermann 21:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the template speaks of excessive or inappropriate use of the first and second persons; it does not say anything to suggest that use of generic you is inappropriate, and in this article it clearly was not excessive. Second of all, even if the template explicitly addressed generic you, the existence of a template really doesn't say very much; I could just as easily create a template that read:

This article may be using generic one where generic you would be clearer and more consistent with a twenty-first-century encyclopedic writing style.
Please improve the article or discuss proposed changes on the talk page.

If you want to convince me, you'll have to give actual evidence, such as a link to an established policy or guideline that supports your view.

Ruakh 12:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It's in WP:MOS. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Avoid the second person. ⇒Bayerischermann ^- 03:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the link. Still, I think it's better to rephrase a sentence to avoid a generic pronoun than to simply replace generic you with generic one. (At least, provided it's possible to rephrase things without producing a ridiculous sentence.) Ruakh 11:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should article be moved?

I think maybe we should move this article, seeing as it's as much about generic one as about generic you. How about English generic pronouns or English generic personal pronouns or Generic you and one? —Ruakh_TALK 02:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I'd vote with the first naming option. Storeye 11:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

I personally use "one" intead of "you" all the time and don't consider it formal or stuffy etc. This article seems to me to be very biased towards the use of "you". Am I just weird? Storeye 13:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed unreferenced tag

I removed the "unreferenced" tag. I see several sources cited in-text, and one reference cited for the article generally, so this seemed inappropriate. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)