'We' for 'I' in writing

[James C Stalker]

1.  I agree that the Word Big Brother checker is annoyingly retro.

2.  You must remember that Big Bill (aka Big Brother) dropped out of school,
so has an inferiority complex, despite all his money.  Money does not equal
knowledge of language and fork use, or real knowledge of any kind.  Big
Bill’s money cache represents a clever, rapacious approach to commerce,
not a knowledge of language.

3. Big Bill can afford to hire anybody to say or do whatever he wants, and
he wants a very conservative system which supports his control over life,
all computer applications and the European Union.  Big Bill and Gould Brown
would like each other.

3.  No one has to (hasta) accept Bill’s notions of propriety, perspicuity,
and precision, just because he has incorporated his values in a robotic
program.

4. You should use we or I wherever you wish, and don’t let Big Bill raise
your blood pressure. He might eliminate one more burr under his saddle.


Jim


RonButters at AOL.COM writes:

> If we have discussed this before, I apologize. What I want to know is how one
> might communicate to the folks who created MicrosoftWord's grammar checker
> that some of their advice is totally crazy. For example, in a legal document I
> wrote:
>
> "During the academic year 2005–6 I will chair both the Linguistics Program
> and the Department of English at Duke. ..."
>
> Word insists that this should be changed to read, "During the academic year
> 2005–6 we will chair both the Linguistics Program and the Department of English
> at Duke. ..."
>
> I have gained a little weight since January, but not enough to qualify me as
> plural. Nor am I the queen of England (who is reported to have once said, "We
> and our husband are glad"). Nor am I a nurse--who apparently can get away with
> saying things like "It is time for our enema" (oh, but that is a different
> 'we'--here it means 'you'). Could this be some kind of Yankee reflex of the
> mysterious, ghostly, singular Y'ALL?
>
> Does ANYBODY teach students to write papers in which they refer to themselves
> as crowds of people or stuffy old queens? That is soooo 1930s, it seems to me
> (us?)
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University