Nosism

Nosism, from the Latin nos, is the practice of using the pronoun "we" to refer to oneself.^[1]

Depending on the person using the nosism different uses can be distinguished:

The royal "we" or Majestic plural

The majestic plural is the use of "we" to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch, bishop, or pope.

The editorial "we"

The editorial "we" is a similar phenomenon, in which an editorial columnist in a newspaper or a similar commentator in another medium refers to himself as we when giving his opinion. Here, he casts himself in the role of a spokesperson: either for the media institution that employs him, or more generally on behalf of the party or body of citizens who agree with the commentary.

The author's "we" or pluralis modestiae

Similar to the editorial "we" is the practice common in scientific literature of referring to a generic third person by we (instead of the more common one or the informal you):

By adding four and five, we obtain nine.
We are thus led also to a definition of "time" in physics. – Albert Einstein

"We" in this sense often refers to "the reader and the author," since the author often assumes that the reader knows and agrees with certain principles or previous theorems for the sake of brevity (or, if not, the reader is prompted to look them up), for example, so that the author does not need to explicitly write out every step of a mathematical proof. ^{[citation needed]}

This practice is also common in philosophy journals and texts, and comments in computer source code. ^{[citation needed]}

The patronizing "we"

The patronizing "we" is sometimes used in addressing instead of "you," suggesting that the addressee is not alone in his situation, that "I am with you, we are in this together." This usage is emotionally non-neutral and usually bears a condescending, ironic, praising, or some other connatation, depending on an intonation: "Aren't we looking cute?"

The non-confrontative "we"

In distinction to the patronizing "we" is the non-confrontative "we" used in T-V languages such as Spanish where the phrase ¿Cómo estamos? (literally, "How are we?") is sometimes used to avoid both over-familiarity and over-formality among near-peer acquaintances.

References

^ "A.Word.A.Day – nosism". Retrieved 11 January 2008.

[nosism-1] "A.Word.A.Day – nosism". Retrieved 11 January 2008.

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