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I've wondered for years why someone, when he/she is asked, "How did you feel when (it happened)?", laces their answer with the word "you", (i.e., "YOU were horrified . . .YOU started to feel afraid . . . YOU were disappointed . . . YOU were trying to get out of there . . . etc." when the question should be answered with the "I" pronoun: "I was horrified . . . afraid . . . disappointed . . . trying to get out of there, etc." Is using "YOU" a way to deflect feelings that may still be too strong to talk about in a personal way? Is it a way to get the audience to empathize? I was always taught to answer a question like "How did YOU . . . what did YOU . . . why did YOU . . . etc." with the pronoun "I". I've heard this happen many times, even with professionals answering questions on media like radio and tv and I think it's rather odd.
Welcome.
I agree it sounds odd, but I can't recall ever hearing it. It also sounds related to another thread about people who refer to themselves in the third person, often by name.
The only situation that comes to mind that might fit your description is when the question is using the impersonal you, as in "In New York do you say 'stand on line?' rather than 'stand in line'?" The answer to this question might well be "Yes, in New York you say 'stand on line.'"
This use of you is similar to the impersonal one which appears to be all but gone. "In New York does one say 'stand on line?'" "Yes, in New York one says 'stand on line.'"
If you find a clip on line, share it with us.
The real "why you" question is how English came to use "you" to represent an arbitrary person. While the formal version is "how does one clear the print buffer?", advice is usually sought (and given) in the second person: "you have to reset the initialization parameters, then you call up the maintenance menu".
"One" is more formal, but it can be overdone, as in the satiric VD lecture on an album by the Credibility Gap: "One does not always know what one is letting one's self in for when one entertains a member of one's opposite sex."
Thanks, Glenn and Ron, for your posts. I think your discussion of the use of "you" in English is a different issue than what I'm asking about, though. I contend that the use of "you" in my problem originally stated is not correct. I meant to ask why people being interviewed, when asked something like, "How did you feel when your brother was run over by a speeding car and killed in front of you?" will invariably say something like, "YOU feel helpless, YOU are horrified, YOU are afraid . . ." It's more of a personal question I'm asking about, rather than general information.
A number of years ago, twenty-two, in fact, I was interviewed by a journalist for a feature article in her newspaper. I had returned home a couple of hours earlier by means of long flights and longer layovers, and I had a fever, sore throat, (terminal serial comma) and so forth, and had no desire to talk to this person, though she was my friend. When I read her article I was dismayed to find that wherever she quoted me, I had used the "you" form. She asked, "What do you do before you go onstage?" I replied, "Well, you think about…"
I didn't want to talk about "me." "I" felt horrible, so we talked about "you" instead. If you were in this situation, this is how you would feel, this is what you would do. I think that dilettante and Glenn are quite right–it's self-defense through sharing. The experiences I was talking about weren't painful, but the act of presenting it was.
The truly painful part was reading my own words, Oh, it was a memorable article. You don't give interviews in that style twice.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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