Talk:One (pronoun)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Classification 2 1st/3rd person 3 Possessive form 4 Formality and Pomposity 5 I borrowed one 6 "Dative"

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] "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)