One (pronoun)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One is a personal pronoun in the English language. It is a gender neutral, third person singular pronoun, commonly used in English prose. It is similar to the French pronoun on and the German man in that it is a pronoun that makes no reference to a specific individual.
Examples of its use:
- One cannot help but grow older.
- If one were to fail, that would be unfortunate.
Some consider its use to be formal. One can avoid one by using the passive voice or generic you. One is sometimes used to avoid gender-specific pronouns like he and she. See: gender-neutral pronouns.
| Gender-neutral pronouns |
|---|
| He | One | Singular they |
| Spivak | Ve | Xe | Ze | Sie/hir | Thon |
