One and Me

According to a list I read some years ago, I regularly use several words in my lexicon that are considered ‘old fashioned’. As that list was published nearly ten years ago and I’m still using most of those words, my language must be increasingly old fashioned.

There is however, one old fashioned word that has fallen into disuse and out of favour that I feel really needs and begs for reintroduction. Especially in this social and over personality focussed modernity we inhabit, where fewer and fewer words are used in an attempt to convey a combined meaning, motivation and voice. All without confusing or offending a reader or listener. There is one word who’s reintroduction I feel could solve more arguments (or stop them happening in the first place) and create more sense and clarity than innumerate amounts of emoticons, footnotes and explanations.

It is a very small and simple word that needs a new lease of life. A word that needs to be resurrected from it’s upper class, literary associations and given a chance to help solve some very modern problems. That word is ‘one’.

I refer of course to the ‘royal one’, the much maligned gender neutral pronoun of the English language. Still widely used in many other languages it is generally considered overly formal in English and avoided by most to prevent appearing ‘posh’ or pretentious. However I’ve lost track of the number of conversations I’ve had with my wife that have teetered on the edge of arguments because I’ve said something like (and purely hypothetical, I don’t have these kinds of discussions… much) “If you eat chips, you will get fat”, which she will immediately take personal offense to, when in fact I was just making an independent observation on the fat content of chips. What I really should have said was, “If one eats chips, one will get fat” which has no ambiguity and very little potential to cause offense to anyone, except perhaps, chips.

With so many people so easily offended these days by the most off-the-cuff comments that are so regularly taken as personal attacks, the reintroduction of ‘one’ would take great strides towards clearing up an awful lot of mess and confusions, especially in the ultimate off-the-cuff world of the social network updates, it would facilitate separating general comments from genuine personal comments directed at particular people.

So reclaim ‘one’ from it’s lofty echelons and put away those vague, confusion causing second person plurals. Don’t be afraid of letting it litter your statements and conversations, spreading it’s conciseness and clarity wherever it goes.