Re: Indefinite pronouns

On 20/06/2024 02:34, vallor wrote:

On Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:51:56 +0300, Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc>
wrote in <20240620025156.2ae9300726603b4cb3631547@gmail.moc>:
 

Cross-posting to alt.english.usage .

 I've set the followup-to: same

I've put it back to comp.lang.c.  It's off-topic for that group, but that's where people were discussing it, and it seems to be of a at least some interest to some regulars here.  (I suppose maybe those regulars are also followers of alt.english.usage.)

 

>
Tim Rentsch to Anton Shepelev:

But "one" can also be used as a first person definite pronoun
(referring to the speaker), which an online reference tells me is
chiefly British English.

>
I had no idea it could, nor does Wikipedia.  Can you share an example of
a definite first-person `one'?

 I think that would go something like:
 "One wonders how..."

It is /possible/, but archaic and very upper-class.  You'd immediately suspect the speaker is wearing a top hat.
It is much more common to say simply "I wonder how...", followed by "You wonder how..." (with "you" being generic rather than specifically the person listening).  Such usage will be more common in some dialects than others.

 (Also, in some writing, "this one" can replace "I" -- this one used to do
that on Usenet, but was told it was pretentious.)
 

That would be even less common.  The form, again archaic, would be more usually written as "This writer used to do that..." (or "This programmer", or however the person wanted to style himself/herself).