h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

or, properly punctuated, "Do you use 'one'?" I have just spent about 20 minutes explaining to a writing class that as a pronoun this is defunct and except for Prince Charles one has not heard it in the last twenty years. I then logged onto h2g2 and the first post I read (from a known 29 year old) says something like "one desn't tend to discover this for oneself."
So, does anyone else out there use "one" ? And, if so, are you under 50 years old?

The answer to both questions is 'No'. If I'm speaking about my own feelings and my own experience, I use 'I'. If I'm speaking about the world at large, including myself, I use 'You'. And I'm well under 50.

I use one for a slightly different emphasis/meaning.
If I say "I" it means I am speaking for just me - whereas when I use one it means I am implying that this applies to you or a third party.
Compare:
"I don't mix red wine and fish" with "One doesn't mix red wine and fish".

Incredibly pompous. "We don't mix red wine and fish", "(Most) people don't mix red wine and fish"

Not at all....well, maybe...but:
"Most people don't do x" has a sinister "and if you do you aren't fit to be a person" type undertone. All to do with this simplistic idea that whatever most people do is what is right

I find the "We" construction more sinister and pompous and condescending than "one".

It infers that "we" don't/do do this, while the riff-raff (nose wrinkled here) do/don't. (Put their knives in their mouths, watch certain TV programmes)

There, and I've caught myself using "they" too.

Gooday Wandrin'star,

What is wrong with mixing red wine and fish? Take care,

Walter.

Both the spearcarrier and I are allergic to penicillin. Whatever turns good red wine red is related to penicillin. Ergo we do not mix red wine with anything.
Do I take it that you do not use "one" or are Cheerful Dragon and I on our own out here?

"As long as it is done in the privacy of one's home..."

your

Gooday again Wandrin'star,

It must be some allergy to cause you to eschew red wine. You may take it as read that one does not use 'one' in lieu of 'I'. Even if I did, you wouldn't find me admitting it after you designated such usage as being the exclusive province of the over 50's. 'I', 'one', it's all much of a muchness: as Humpty Dumpty famously said, "which is to be the master," the word or the speaker.

And a thirty thousand word vocabulary? Impressive. Just the other day our English professor told us doltish students that a recent survey indicated a 'typical' undergraduate had a 'working' vocab of around two thousand words. To put our mediocrity into context, he then went on to inform us that Shakespeare's works contain something in excess of 22,000 different words. But who's counting? Take care,

Walter.

"Your" implies you do x.

What is meant is "So long as x is done in the privacy of the home of the person doing x".

No it doesn't. It's a generic you, not a specific one. I was under the impression (obviously mistaken) that "you" had completely taken over from "one"
eg You need to buy fresh fish and cook it the same day if you don't want to be sick.

Well my argument is that it hasn't completely...there are those few times when you want to be careful not to implicate yourself or the listner - or am I being over sensitive to this?

I have to admit I am always using 'one', I think it comes from being English and wanting to avoid using the Royal 'We'. It is such a convenient way to generalise (and 'I' always sounds so pompous).

p.s. I am well under 50 (35 actually).

I often use 'one', but rarely in conversation.
It is a bit presumptious ("One would have to agree that 'Huckleberry Finn' is the greatest American novel") but it is more formal and more concise than to say "Most people would have to agree..."
Still, I think it fits in well with the subjunctive tense ("If one were to eat red wine and fish....") because it is an imaginary tense, and thus less presumptious.

I suppose the reason I don't use 'one' is that it so seldom crops up in the conversations I'm involved in. If a situation did arise, I'd probably find another way round it as I think that 'one' sounds a bit pompous. How about, 'If someone were to eat red wine and fish...'? And I would try to avoid anything like, 'One would have to agree..', however it was phrased, unless it was an incontrovertible fact.

As a brief aside, I can't help wondering how many people who aren't programmers recognise '!=' to mean 'does not equal'...

Have C logic symbols infiltrated the english language without me noticing?

26199

I've programmed in C, amongst other languages. I recognise '!=' as meaning 'does not equal', but under appropriate circumstances I use the mathematical '<>'.

One is not a programmer (and how!) but one understood it. Since it was directed at one, one feels it is OK. One also feels that this usage is pompous and avoidable in all cases, but one will stop trying to convince innocent Chinese students of this