October 28, 2007

Nosism

Nosism - The use of 'we' in referring to oneself.


As I keep my nose to the grindstone, I decided to break the monotony of my current rigorous academic life to write this post. The word came today in mail and I had to share it. No great story behind its etymology though. It's simply derived from the Latin word, nos that means "we" and is also known as the "editorial we" due to its frequent use by the editors. Also called "the royal we" owing to royalty using it often. You have to read the trivia though :D


Trivia: Mark Twain once said, "Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the 'editorial we'".


Source: www.wordsmith.org

2 comments:

AlterinG Abhishek said...

oh!

:)
nice

suramya said...

I see mark twain has made a comeback and so shall I dear moi and there will be enough banter on this site soon :), hopefully :)