WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING|LANGUAGES|LINGUISTICS|ENGLISH
Living in a Multilingual World
The one about the plural really meaning the singular
My student looked surprised. I’d only said “How are we doing?” Yet he couldn’t understand why I’d included myself in that question.
It was autumn 2019, a few months before Covid shut down the world, and I was teaching at an independent language school in central London. At the time I had a lovely group of advanced students from all corners of the world. This chap, a Japanese computer wizard, was pretty clued up about all things English. But even he was thrown off when I included him and me in my greeting.
It wasn’t hard to see why. There was no smirking Mario behind me. Either a doppelgänger or alter ego. Surely, I meant to include him. Luckily, my students trusted me. One of the reasons for this was because I treated them like adults. Even those in their mid teens. A common weekend homework would be sending them off to a corner of London, off the beaten tourist track, and getting them to talk to their classmates on the Monday after about what they’d learnt about this lesser-known place.
As part of my attempts to get them to immerse in their new linguistic environment, I used a mix of RP (Received Pronunciation) and my natural London accent on purpose. As any denizen in this country knows, we use “we” a lot of the time, even when we mean “I”.
The reasons vary. One can be traced to King Henry II, who is thought to have introduced the royal “we”. For the monarch this was a way of implying that he was speaking for both himself and God. It became commonplace thereafter. One of the running jokes about the recently departed Elizabeth II was how sometimes there was a “We are not amused” expression of disappointment on her face when she found herself in situations she’d rather have avoided.
A modern use of “we” for “I” points at the world of leadership. If you want to show your staff you care, drop a few “we”, “us”, and “our(s)” in meetings and you’ll come across as a thoughtful, considerate boss.
Last, but not least, there’s also London cabbies to consider. Whenever we (“we”, meaning my two kids and their mum) hired a taxi to take us to the airport before going away on holidays, the driver would inevitably ask me (usually the man), “Where are we off to?”, “Are we going somewhere nice?” No matter how many times I checked our tickers, I could not see an additional passenger in our party.
UK English is a rich tapestry of many dialectal influences. “Do us a favour”, “Give’s a hand” and many other expressions are deeply woven into this country’s fascinating linguistic fabric. Wherever my former student is now, I hope he’s making use of this handy language tool. It would make us ever so proud. “Us” meaning “me”, of course.
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