Talk:Generic you

message: Instead of the "generic you" or "one," some people use "a person," as in "A person might get into movies by working in television."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk) 16:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "a person"

message: I removed the last paragraph, on the singular they.
I wouldn't mind if someone were to add it back in the course of saying more about the
generic you, but as it is, an entry in the See Also: list seemed enough. - 67.164.12.169 09:17, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Paragraph about singular ''they''

message: I think maybe we should move this article, seeing as it's as much about generic one as about generic you. How about English generic pronouns or English generic personal pronouns or Generic you and one? —RuakhTALK 02:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I'd vote with the first naming option. Storeye 11:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Should article be moved?

message: I personally use "one" intead of "you" all the time and don't consider it formal or stuffy etc. This article seems to me to be very biased towards the use of "you". Am I just weird? Storeye 13:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias 

message: I removed the "unreferenced" tag.  I see several sources cited in-text, and one reference cited for the article generally, so this seemed inappropriate. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed unreferenced tag 

message: One third down the page, there is a quote:
    … in a nasty Scottish jail, where one cannot even get the dirt brushed off their clothes. — Sir Walter Scott
This is called out as an indication that Scott was confused about plurality in his speech.  However, it looks much more like a case of using singular they, as noted in that article, and hence not clearly a grammatical error (although perhaps a structure which could be called contentious).  Any thoughts?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.34.10.102 (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, the Walter Scott sentence is perfectly grammatical. Good thing the text saying the contrary has been removed. Nemo 17:32, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the Scott quote proper in this situation? 

message: The phenomenon of generic you, though decried in the works of some still-read prescriptivist grammarians, is so widespread that it is nearly standard usage.
This is the only reference to Standard English that I can find in the article. So is generic you non-standard?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.170.4.71 (talk) 05:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-standard

message: The first part of the article had been marked as needing to have its neutrality checked.  I concur with some of the editors above, who, over the last several years, have noted that this section was not only biased, but it spoke mainly about a totally different topic ("one").  As the bulk of that was uncited, was filled with several clearly NPOV statements, and was furthermore difficult to follow, I have excised the whole lot of it.  Obviously, something substantial should go in it's place, but I don't have access to sources or time right now to do it.  Still, I'd rather have the article say almost nothing than say a bunch of non-neutral, OR things which aren't even related to the topic.  I'm actually tempted to nominate this for merging, although I'm going to have to search later to see where that should be.  Qwyrxian (talk) 05:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, your redaction was probably for the best. One hatesYou hate to lose this much data, but it wasn't sourced and didn't belong. The article is better now, and thank you. Herostratus (talk) 06:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major removal 

message: The article on Disputed English Usage says the generic you is disputed by grammarians.  I think that this article should at least give a citation to a grammarian who actually disputes the use of the generic you (although I realise that finding prescriptive grammarians with any academic clought is a hard thing these days) - By this I don't mean a reference to a blog from a (usually non-native speaking) pedant but a reference to a published grammar book that says that 'you' is wrong in its generic form. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.186.171.227 (talk • contribs) 
:You're absolutely right.  This is one of the unusual cases where I'm on the side of the "Of course it's true, I know it's true", but I accept that we need verification.  That is, I am one of those grammarians who argue against the use of generic you, at least in formal writing, but I don't have any evidence to back up my position as being one held by a wide variety of people.  As such, I'm going to tag the relevant sentence as needing citation, and if no one produces one in a week or two, feel free to delete it from the article.  Qwyrxian (talk) 00:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who Disputes the Generic You? 

message: The section of this article discussing Generic you in languages other than English has had, as of now, a off topic notice for nearly 2 years.  I do not see what about this section is "off topic", and there seems to be no explanation on the talk page of why this is added. So I am going to remove it.  And if anyone holds the opinion that it is off topic then it would be great if we could start a discussion about this.  AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 10:32, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing [[Template:Off topic]] 

message: According to a German person, “du” is never used to replace the word “man”. I think either, a citation should be found that supports the claim made in the section, or the section should be deleted. 92.184.96.111 (talk) 10:32, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Let a native speaker tell you: It depends on the meaning. "Man glaubt, dass die römische Verfassung schrittweise entstand." or "Man hat mich bedroht." cannot be expressed with "du" or any other personal pronoun, while "In so einer Situation muss man wissen, was man tut", "In so einer Situation musst du wissen, was du tust ", "In so einer Situation müssen Sie wissen, was Sie tun" and "In so einer Situation muss ich wissen, was ich tue" may all have the same meaning, depending on context. 2A0A:A541:5A30:0:B097:9819:83CC:DC5A (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Generic you in German