{"id":73372,"date":"2020-03-24T07:36:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T07:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73372"},"modified":"2020-03-24T07:36:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T07:36:35","slug":"indefinite-personal-pronoun-one-english-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/indefinite-personal-pronoun-one-english-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"Indefinite Personal Pronoun One | English Usage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>One\u00a0<\/b>is a substitute word. We often use\u00a0<b>one\u00a0<\/b>instead of repeating a singular countable noun.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018Which is your boy?\u2019 \u2018The one in the blue shirt.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>I want that one, not this one.<\/li>\n<li>\u2018Can you lend me a pen?\u2019 \u2018Sorry, I haven\u2019t got one.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>One<\/b>\u00a0has a plural<b>\u00a0ones.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Green apples often taste better than red ones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Leaving out one(s)<\/h3>\n<p><b>One(s)<\/b>\u00a0can be left out immediately after superlatives, this, that, these, those, either, neither, another and some other determiners.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I think my dog is the fastest (one).<\/li>\n<li>Either (one) will suit me.<\/li>\n<li>Let us have another (one).<\/li>\n<li>\u2018Which (one) would you like?\u2019 \u2018That looks the nicest.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We do not use one(s) immediately after my, your etc., some, any, both or a number.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take your coat and pass me mine. (NOT \u2026 my one.)<\/li>\n<li>I need some matches. Have you got any? (NOT \u2026 any ones?)<\/li>\n<li>Are there any grapes? Yes I bought some today. (NOT \u2026 some ones today.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But note that one(s) is used in all these cases if there is an adjective.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are there any mangoes? Yes, I bought some sweet ones today.<\/li>\n<li>Has the cat had her kittens? Yes, she had four white ones. (NOT \u2026 four white.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We do not use one(s) for uncountable and abstract nouns.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you haven\u2019t got fresh cream I will take tinned (cream). (NOT \u2026 tinned one.)<\/li>\n<li>The Dutch grammatical system is very similar to the English system. (NOT \u2026 the English one.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>One and It<\/h3>\n<p>To refer to one particular thing that has already been clearly identified, we use\u00a0<b>it<\/b>, not one.<\/p>\n<p>Compare:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018Could you lend me a bicycle?\u2019 \u2018Sorry, I haven\u2019t got one.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>\u2018Could you lend me your bicycle?\u2019 \u2018Sorry, I need it.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>One (indefinite personal pronoun)<\/h3>\n<p>We can use\u00a0<b>one\u00a0<\/b>or\u00a0<b>you<\/b>\u00a0to talk about people in general.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One\/you should not do such an unkind thing as that.<\/li>\n<li>One\/you should love one\u2019s\/your country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that one is more formal than you.<\/p>\n<p><b>One<\/b>\u00a0is not used to generalise about people who could not include the speaker;\u00a0<b>you\u00a0<\/b>is not used to generalise about people who could not include the hearer.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One\/you must believe in something.<\/li>\n<li>In the sixteenth century people believed in witches. (NOT \u2026 one\/you believed in witches \u2013 this could not include the speaker or hearer.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Pronouns referring back to one<\/h3>\n<p>When\u00a0<b>one<\/b>\u00a0is used in American English, he, him and his are generally used later in a sentence to refer back to one. This is not normal in British English.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One should love his country. (US)<\/li>\n<li>One should love one\u2019s country. (GB)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>One<\/b>\u00a0can be a subject or object; there is a possessive one\u2019s and a reflexive pronoun oneself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One\u00a0is a substitute word. We often use\u00a0one\u00a0instead of repeating a singular countable noun. \u2018Which is your boy?\u2019 \u2018The one in the blue shirt.\u2019 I want that one, not this one. \u2018Can you lend me&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[2183,2182,2181,2184],"class_list":["post-73372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-one","tag-one-as-a-pronoun","tag-personal-pronoun-one","tag-using-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73373,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73372\/revisions\/73373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}