Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
INDEFINITE YOU, INDEFINITE ONE
Compare When one has talent, one must do one’s best to develop it and When you have talent, you must do your best to develop it. You sounds much more direct, conversational, and concrete, and it is far more common than one in almost all modern American English, written and spoken. You also is much less likely to pose the problems with parallelism and agreement that frequently occur with one as the indefinite pronoun. One ought not to jump to conclusions if he can avoid it shows the first bit of slippage, when one shifts to the generic pronoun he, but the much more common and more harshly judged problems are the shift from singular one to plural they and the shift from singular one to either singular or plural you: One ought not to jump to conclusions if they [you] can avoid it.
Aside from occurring in speech and writing where generality is the aim, both these indefinite pronouns often substitute for I, particularly when a speaker is trying to avoid sounding immodest. Unfortunately, one is frequently more stiff-sounding and attention getting than the first person pronoun would have been. If you must be humble, you is your best bet: Even if don’t [you don’t, one doesn’t] like what’s being served, I try [you try, one tries] not to be unpleasant about it. See YOU.
