It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill

Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by frozenport on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @09:35AM (#10737919)

The plural pronoun "we" is used despite there only being one author.

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by mabbo on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @09:37AM (#10737937)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.D.C._Willard

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by rubidium on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @10:18AM (#10738207)

This is very common in academia. Not saying it makes sense. Just saying he's following the craft.

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by geon on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @10:33AM (#10738295)

The author + the reader?

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by kej on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @10:52AM (#10738441)

I always heard it explained as the author plus everyone who laid the groundwork in the field. Sort of a standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants thing.

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by infimum on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @10:46AM (#10738394)

i always read it as a 'generalized' personal pronoun implying no particular subject (like 'man' in german or 'on' in french) which is nicer than writing everything in a passive voice.

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by restalis on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @11:39AM (#10738726)

"You" for singular and plural seemed mind-narrowing to me at first too, until we... got accustomed to. Surely the trend can continue with other pronouns!

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Re:It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill by itaibn on Tuesday December 15, 2015 @02:41PM (#10739938)

And gender-neutral singular "they" is steadily growing more popular!

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