You , they and One

1) One has to work hard to realise one's goal. (BrE)
2) They have to work hard to realise their goal. (OK)
3) You have to work hard to realise your goal.

Hi,

1) One has to work hard to realise their one's goal.

2) They have to work hard to realise their goal. OK

3) You have to work hard to realise their your goal. (unless they employ me to work hard to realize something that is their goal but not mine)



When the pronoun YOU , ONE and THEY mean people in general , which one is com

CliveHi,

'One' is not commonly used in the USA. Here in Canada it's not uncommon, at least among Canadians with a British background, and I'd say it's an indicator of educated speech.



Best wishes, Clive


I wish we had a more functional gender/number/person-neutral pronoun in English. I don't quite agree with Clive's assessment o

Hi Philip,

I wondered if anyone would take me up on that. Particularly when I juxtaposed that remark with my comment that Americans don't use it.

PhilipWith 'one' all we can do is repeat with the possessive [one's] because we cannot use 'his' or 'her'.

One has to do his/one's duty is fine with me and many grammarians but I do know many object to it as well. (That may be one of the reasons I like to combine one with his! [6])

CB

PS: I agree with

I agree with Philip the use of "one" tends to sound stuffy in many contexts, but that doesn't mean it always does, and that also doesn't mean that "one is not used in AmE. It seems to me that "one" has a much more remote or impersonal sort of feel to it than "you" does, so that may be the primary reason it can tend to sound rather stuffy.

Yoong Liat1) One has to work hard

Yankee

Yoong Liat1) One has to work hard to realise one's goal. (BrE)

Hi Yoong Liat
You seem to like labeling things as BE or AmE, however in my opinion, your labels are often very misleading. Labeling something as BE suggests that it is not used in AmE, and vice versa. Labeling the sentence