Nov 05 2008
“One” Is a Stuffed Shirt
Have you ever been innocently reading along when you are suddenly accosted by a sentence like the following?
If one wants to write, one should learn the rules of grammar.
How does it make you feel? Like you’re reading something an Oxford professor wrote 50 years ago? Same here.
Do the following renditions sound better?
The use of “one” as a generic “everyone out there” sort of pronoun seems more formal, archaic and stuffy by the day. In saying this, I’m sure I’ll draw the ire of writers who use the word frequently in that way. To them, I will say in advance, “I’m sorry if I offended you, but I won’t take it back. ‘One’ has become stodgy, and you know it.”
My personal preference, which I share with most writers who have left the manual typewriter for the computer, is to use “you” instead of “one” as I did in the first of the two bulleted sentences above.
Why not? It sounds better. And it’s more personal. In the relatively few cases where using “you” in that context is not appropriate (doctoral theses, missives from the Vatican and international peace treaties), other options are available, such as the one used in the second bulleted sentence.
It’s a brave new world.
Here, here! (another archaic phrase, but I thought it appropriate) I agree. I’m a humor writer and the only time I use “one” in that way is when I need a snooty sounding word. But, I have to admit, I always get a creepy feeling when I do, like my old high school English teacher is going to show up at my door with a red pen in hand.
Great website, by the way. Keep up the good work. I’ve passed your address on to my writer’s group.
~gloria
http://gloriaslater.blogspot.com