Path: ...!feed.opticnetworks.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Indefinite pronouns [was:Re: realloc() - frequency, conditions, or experiences about relocation?] Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:23:29 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 70 Message-ID: <86plsahl0e.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <875xu8vsen.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87zfrjvqp6.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87tthrvdtg.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <20240617181034.74fb4cca1f4a9a3ea032825e@g{oogle}mail.com> <86r0cuk9qz.fsf@linuxsc.com> <20240620025156.2ae9300726603b4cb3631547@gmail.moc> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:23:31 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="b1207652c594f8095021b04518fba685"; logging-data="3203081"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/lm/NhwVh/id0TwY/iH5QGy92yMqrFUCY=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:xQnf0oEI5+2G+OQOjAhwYlq3sZ8= sha1:FZ1cBfc62XStq9CzKad7/qP6Lko= Bytes: 4330 Anton Shepelev writes: > Cross-posting to alt.english.usage . > > Tim Rentsch to Anton Shepelev: > >>> I think it is a modern English idiom, which I dislike as >>> well. StackOverflow is full of questions starting like: >>> "How do you do this?" and "How do I do that?" They are >>> informal ways of the more literary "How does one do >>> this?" or "What is the way to do that?" >> >> I have a different take here. First the "your" of "your >> strategy" reads as a definite pronoun, meaning it refers >> specifically to Ben and not to some unknown other party. > > And I am /sure/ it is intended in the general (indefinite) > sense, I don't know why you think that. I don't know any native English speakers who would read it as other than referring to the person being responded to (who was Ben in this case). Responding to Malcolm's statement, Ben said "It's odd to call it mine", so it seems Ben also read it as a definite pronoun, referring to himself. As for the rest of your comments, you're reaching bad conclusions because you're not looking in the right places. To investigate the meaning and usage of words and phrases, the best first place to look is always a dictionary. In the process of writing my earlier response, I consulted roughly half a dozen different online dictionaries, reading definitions for 'one', 'you', 'they', 'indefinite pronoun', 'definite pronoun', and probably some other terms. I also looked at non-dictionary sources if they looked relevant, but my starting point was dictionaries. Oh, I also looked up both 'idiom' and 'idiomatic' (which even though they are related don't mean the same thing). Incidentally, on the three pages you gave links for, all of them had at least one example that used "you" as an indefinite pronoun. One point I want to clear up. A couple of times you characterize the indefinite pronoun usage of "you" as "modern". It is not in any sense modern. I am a native speaker of English, speaking and reading the language for well over 60 years. Furthermore I was raised by a grammarian. In all of that time and experience there was never any hint that "you" as an indefinite pronoun was new or unusual or considered substandard or slang or unacceptable. It is simply standard usage, and has been for longer than my lifetime. >> 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'? (A) Pick a good search engine (I use duckduckgo.com). (B) Search for the two words one definition. (C) Read the entries for every online dictionary that is found, or at least the top five or six. You should find a couple of examples. It was by going through this process myself that I discovered "one" is sometimes used as a first person definite pronoun.