we

we

1. The personal pronoun we has a wide range of reference, so that care is often needed to avoid misunderstanding. In its primary meanings it can denote any of the following: (1) you (singular or plural) and I, (2) you and I and some others, or (3) I and some others (but not you: We are going now, but don't you hurry). Informally, it can also mean just ‘you’, as in the condescending form of enquiry How are we today?

2. We is also used with indefinite reference in the following conventional uses:

a) When a writer or speaker includes his or her readers or hearers and other unnamed people in a statement or proposition: As we saw in the last chapter… / What do we, as a nation, care about books? / We have to tackle the problem of inflation.

b) When a monarch is using the first person (the so-called royal we). This practice is dying out, however. Queen Victoria is credited with the remark We are not amused, but Queen Elizabeth II is noted for My husband and I and generally uses the singular form when referring to herself. (Margaret Thatcher's pronouncement We have become a grandmother, quoted in The Times of 4 March 1989, was blatant affectation.)

3. We is sometimes used mistakenly for us, possibly as a kind of hypercorrection, in sentences such as: Perhaps this product is best suited to we cloth-capped northerners. For the wrong use of us for we, see us ².