Everything about One Pronoun totally explained
One is a pronoun in the
English language. It is a
gender neutral, third-person singular (though slightly anomalous) pronoun, commonly used in English prose. It is equivalent to the French pronoun
on (upon which it may be modeled), or the German
man, or the Spanish 'uno'.
Cases and usage
One may be used in the
nominative, but (much unlike French
on and German
man) it can also be used in other cases. It occurs most commonly in sentences in the
present simple tense or
conditional constructions.
Examples of its use:
Nominative
» *
One can't help but grow older.
*
If one were to fail, that would be unfortunate.
Accusative
Verbal object
» *
Drunkenness makes one unreliable.
Prepositional object
» *
A reputation travels with one.
Dative
» *
That dead-end job at least gives one a chance to develop as a person.
Genitive
The genitive form of one is
one's, as in
» *
One's experiences shape
one's expectations.
There is no strong form analogous to
hers and
yours:
*One's is broken;
*I sat on one's;
*I broke one's.
Reflexive
A reflexive form
oneself appears at times:
» To quit smoking is like giving oneself a raise.
Oneself is anomalous in its inability to refer back to anything other than
one:
» *
One exhausts oneself.
*
* Smith exhausted oneself.
Style and rhetoric
Some consider
one to be overly formal, and avoid it. However, in doing so, they encounter problems only resolvable by awkward phrasings or a significant drop in formality. In particular, phrasing a sentence in a gender neutral way may require the
passive voice,
singular they, pluralizing,
you, or circumlocution. In addition, the word
one can also be used for inanimate objects, creating possible confusion in careless writing. For example,
- If one chooses to disobey the rules, one must be dealt with.
The second
one may co-refer with the first, or it may refer to a specific rule. (If this sentence were spoken at all, the second
one would require distinctive intonation for the second interpretation.)
Etymology
One may have come into use as an imitation of French
on. French
on derives from Latin
homo, nominative singular for
human. It is distinct from the French word for the English numeral one
un(e), which never appears as a pronoun.
Further Information
Get more info on 'One Pronoun'.
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