We<\/strong><\/h2>\nBy Ben Zimmer
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nPublished: October 1, 2010<\/h6>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\nTheodore Rockwell, <\/strong>who served as technical director for the U.S. Navy\u2019s nuclear-propulsion program in the 1950s and \u201960s, shared a telling anecdote about his onetime boss, the famously irascible Adm. Hyman G. Rickover. \u201cOne time he caught me using the editorial we<\/em>, as in \u2018we will get back to you by. . . .\u2019 \u201d Rockwell recalled in his memoir, \u201cThe Rickover Effect.\u201d \u201cHe explained brusquely that only three types of individual were entitled to such usage: \u2018The head of a sovereign state, a schizophrenic and a pregnant woman. Which are you, Rockwell?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\nRelated<\/strong><\/h5>\nRickover was hardly alone in his abhorrence of the editorial we<\/em> \u2014 so called because of its usage by anonymous opinion columnists. In fact, his barb has been told in many different ways over the years. Consider another volatile personality, Roscoe Conkling, who served as senator from New York after the Civil War. In 1877, Conkling objected to how the new president, Rutherford B. Hayes, overused the word we<\/em>, and The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported his rejoinder: \u201cYes, I have noticed there are three classes of people who always say \u2018we\u2019 instead of \u2018I.\u2019 They are emperors, editors and men with a tapeworm.\u201d<\/p>\nConkling\u2019s formulation was picked up by we<\/em>-haters far and wide. The trifecta of \u201ckings, editors and people with tapeworm\u201d has been widely attributed to Mark Twain, but like so many witticisms credited to him, there\u2019s no record he ever said it. It\u2019s also unlikely that Henry David Thoreau ever made the remark once ascribed to him: \u201cWe<\/em> is used by royalty, editors, pregnant women and people who eat worms.\u201d<\/p>\nWorms, or more specifically tapeworms, figure prominently in we<\/em>-\u00adrelated humor. The earliest known joke to combine parasites and pronouns comes from George Horatio Derby, a humorist from California who assumed the pen name John Phoenix. \u201cI do not think I have a tapeworm,\u201d he wrote in 1855, \u201ctherefore I have no claim whatever to call myself \u2018we,\u2019 and I shall by no means fall into that editorial absurdity.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat is it about the presumptuous use of we<\/em> that inspires so much outrage, facetious or otherwise? The roots of these adverse reactions lie in the haughtiness of the majestic plural, or royal we<\/em>, shared by languages of Western Europe since the days of ancient Roman emperors. British sovereigns have historically referred to themselves in the plural, but by the time of Queen Victoria, it was already a figure of fun. Victoria, of course, is remembered for the chilly line, \u201cWe are not amused\u201d \u2014 her reaction, according to Sir Arthur Helps, the clerk of the privy council, to his telling of a joke to the ladies in waiting at a royal dinner party.\u00a0 Margaret Thatcher invited mocking Victorian comparisons when she announced in 1989, \u201cWe have become a grandmother.\u201d<\/p>\nNameless authors of editorials may find the pronoun we<\/em> handy for representing the voice of collective wisdom, but their word choice opens them up to charges of gutlessness and self-importance. As the fiery preacher Thomas De Witt Talmage wrote in 1875: \u201cThey who go skulking about under the editorial \u2018we,\u2019 unwilling to acknowledge their identity, are more fit for Delaware whipping-posts than the position of public educators.\u201d<\/p>\nGiven the accumulated resentment of \u201cnosism\u201d (using we<\/em> for I<\/em>, from the Latin pronoun nos<\/em>), it\u2019s little wonder that modern literary writers have rarely tried to write narratives in the first person plural. But the device of collective narration has worked effectively on occasion, from William Faulkner\u2019s \u201cRose for Emily\u201d to Joshua Ferris\u2019s \u201cThen We Came To the End.\u201d Most recently, Lisa Birnbach has taken the nosist route in \u201cTrue Prep\u201d,\u201d her 30-year follow-up to \u201cThe Official Preppy Handbook.\u201d (Opening lines: \u201cWake up, Muffy, we\u2019re back<\/em>. O.K., now where were we?\u201d)<\/p>\nThe royal and editorial we<\/em> are examples of the exclusive we<\/em>, meaning that the person being addressed is not included in the scope of the pronoun. English, like many languages, uses the same word for the inclusive first-person plural, encompassing the notional \u201cyou\u201d along with \u201cme.\u201d The inclusive we<\/em> seeks out a bond of empathy or common understanding between the speaker and the receiver of a message. Writers rely on it to establish rapport with readers, and teachers with students (\u201cas we shall see\u201d). But this is not always a welcome rhetorical move, especially when it comes across as pedantic or condescending. At worst, it can recall the we<\/em> of caregivers for the very young and very old: \u201cHow are we feeling today?\u201d<\/p>\nThe overreaching effect of the inclusive we<\/em> has sparked its own humorous traditions. In August 1956, the Los Angeles Times columnist Gene Sherman introduced into print what was already a well-traveled story about the Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick, Tonto. Surrounded by \u201cwild, screaming Indians,\u201d the Lone Ranger desperately asks Tonto, \u201cWhat will we do?\u201d Tonto replies, \u201cWhat do you mean \u2018we,\u2019 paleface?\u201d Later versions changed \u201cpaleface\u201d to \u201cwhite man\u201d or \u201ckemo sabe,\u201d Tonto\u2019s endearing epithet for the Ranger. The joke is so well known in the United States that just the punch line is usually sufficient for rebuffing an overly inclusive we<\/em>.<\/p>\nAn equally colorful but less common American retort to the inclusive first-person plural pronoun is \u201cWe? You got a mouse in your pocket?\u201d Curt Johnson, publisher of the Chicago literary magazine December, remarked in a 1966 article that he heard the line from a student talking back to a college instructor. Many other regional variants have sprung up, with \u201crat\u201d or \u201cfrog\u201d standing in for \u201cmouse.\u201d Another more sex-specific inquiry is about \u201ca mouse in your purse.\u201d Dabblers in nosism beware: whether it\u2019s tapeworms or rodents, saying we<\/em> where I<\/em> would do can expose you to accusations of infestation.”<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Given our use of the “editorial We” on The Lefort Report, and our love of language, we enjoyed a recent article by Ben Zimmer on such usage that appeared in the New York Times Magazine.\u00a0 You can find it here and set forth below.\u00a0 At a minimum, we have a new mission statement (the title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/tapeworm.jpg\" "\\"tapeworm\\"")
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