A Dictionary of Cont..

Except when it refers indefinitely to a human
being, the pronoun one is anaphoric, that is, it
is always used in place of a noun that has been
mentioned a short time before. In this use., one
has the plural ones and the genitive one’s. It
may be qualified by the, a, or any other adjective,
as in the good ones, the other ones, a ripe
one. It may even be qualified by the number
one, as in one good one. A one is an emphatic
form of one. The phrase is considered redundant
by some people but it has been used at least
since Elizabethan times, as in there’s not a one
of them but in his house I keep a servant jee’d,
and is standard in the United States today.
One is often used after an adjective that is
parallel to a preceding adjective and noun, as
in the big bear and the little one, this book and
that one. This construction is possible when we
are speaking of individual, countable things,
but not when we are using a mass word, such
as bzztter in this butter and that. Modern grammarians
say that in this construction one is a
“prop word.” It is logically unnecessary but
required by our feeling for words which demands
some noun equivalent after these a’djectives.
Fifty or seventy years ago the construction
was considered pleonastic. (See pleonasm,) It
is now standard English.
The pronoun one is always singular and the
adjective one always qualifies a singular noun.
One is usually followed by a singular verb.
Although the subject is logically plural we ordinarily
use a singular verb after more than one,
as in more than one is broken. Theoretically,
a singular verb is required because the subject
is the word one and more than is merely a qualifying
phrase. And practically, the singular verb
feels right because the word one is standing
immediately before it. With a phrase such as
one olct of ten we have a different situation and
either a singular or a plural may be used. We
may say one oz4t of ten is or one out of ten are.
In speaking of people the plural form is preferred.
One of must be followed by a plural noun,
and this may be followed by a descriptive
clause. When it is, the clause verb should, logically,
be plural, as in one of the best books
that have appeared. Actually, a singular is often
used here, as in one of the best books that has
appeared. This construction is condemned by
many grammarians on the grounds of logic. But
it is found in the earliest English and has been
used by some of the greatest writers. It shows
that the writer still has one in mind. Shelley
wrote: I am one of those who am unable to
refuse my assent. Here the word I has overridden
one and those. This is unusual. But in
the United States the more familiar construction,
using a third person singular verb, (does
not offend anyone except grammarians.
When numerals are being written in figures
the symbol 1 must not be used for the word one
unless it actually represents a numeral. The
pronoun one is almost never a numeral, although
occasionally it may be, as in somew.here
among those hundreds of letters was my one.
The adjective one is often a numeral, but not
always. It may be no more than a particularizing
adjective, as in one man’s meat is another
man’s poison. The numeral one always means
“one and one only.” It usually stands in contrast
to some other number word, such as three,
several, many. In speech the numeral one has
a particular stress that the word does not have
when it is not a number.
The one . . . the other is an ambiguous form
of speech. In a man and a woman were coming
down the road: the one was about twenty years
old and the other, twice that age, we cannot be
sure whether it is the woman or the man who
is twenty years old. On theoretical grounds, the
one should mean the first and the other should
mean the second, but we can’t be sure that the
writer knew this. And what is more to the
point, if we are doing the writing, we can’t
assume that the reader will know this. The
words are sometimes used to mean the first . . .
the second, and sometimes to mean the reverse,
this one . . . that one. They should therefore be
avoided except where the context makes the
meaning clear.
one another. See each other.
one foot in the grave. To say of someone feeble
with age or mortally stricken with a serious
sickness that he has one foot in the grave is to
employ a worn expression.
one touch of nature makes the whole world kin
is usually spoken as if it meant that any appeal
to the simple, basic emotions will, by the immensity
of the response, show the basic kinship
of all men, their common humanity, the power
of sympathy. The expression, however, is a line
from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (III,
iii, 17.5). spoken by the cynical Ulysses. It is
there a part of a passage which says that one
natural trait shows the kinship of all men and
this natural trait is inconstancy and a continued
preference for anything new and gaudy, however
worthless, over anything older of more
solid worth.
oneself. This word was formerly written one’s
self. The old spelling is still acceptable, but the
newer oneself is preferred. (For the ways in
which oneself may be used, see reflexive pronouns.)
only. This word may be an adjective, an adverb,
or a conjunction. The adjective only means sole
or single of its kind and always stands before
the noun it qualifies, as in his only friend. In
current English the word has no comparative or
superlative form although it was once possible
to say tlze onliest method.
The adverb only is a negative and means
“not anything except” or “nothing except.”
When it qualifies an individual element in a
sentence it may stand before or after that element,
as in only here and here only. It may be
used.to qualify the subject of the verb, as in
onlv children believe this. The word is not an
adjective here because it in no way limits the
meaning of the word children. On the con-