royal we
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English
[edit]Noun
[edit]royal we (plural royal we's or (rare) royal wes)
- The first-person plural pronoun we as traditionally used by a sovereign in formal speech to refer to themselves in their role as the monarch.
- Queen Victoria is the monarch most commonly associated with the use of the royal we, as in "We are not amused."
- 1997, Harry Berger, Jr., “What Does the Duke Know and When Does He Know It? Carrying the Torch in Measure for Measure”, in Peter Erickson, editor, Making Trifles of Terrors: Redistributing Complicities in Shakespeare, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 347:
- The string of royal we’s in lines 19–27 conflates his personal responsibility with those of the civic institution and the city fathers, and the two analogies he appeals to along the way have self-exculpatory force.
- 1999, Peter Gould, “[Thinking about Teaching] What Is Worth Teaching in Geography?”, in Becoming a Geographer, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, published 2000, →ISBN, page 238:
- I know there are certain conventions of style to be observed when one writes for a professional journal. I’s indicative of real people must be suppressed, even at the cost of substituting royal we’s.
- 2000, Edward Stourton, Absolute Truth: The Struggle for Meaning in Today’s Catholic Church, New York, N.Y.: TV Books, →ISBN, page 31:
- It may not sound very revolutionary to the modern ear—with all those royal wes and the orotund periods of Ciceronian dimensions which, with their apparently endless sub-clauses building slowly to a climax as they do, would probably read and sound better in Latin.
- 2006, Sharon Fiffer, Hollywood Stuff, New York, N.Y.: Minotaur, St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN:
- “So it wasn’t a royal we,” said Jane, turning around to face former Evanston police detective Bruce Oh and his wife, Claire. / Bruce Oh raised an eyebrow slightly, which for him was a thoroughly out-of-character display of expression. Jane did not know, however, whether he was surprised to see her or had no idea what she meant by the reference to the royal we. / “When we spoke on the phone,” said Jane,” you said when we return from California, but I didn’t know you were in California, so I thought you were just—”
- 2011, Otis Webb Brawley with Paul Goldberg, How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, published 2012, →ISBN, page 145:
- “We want you to apply to Stanford, UCSF, University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dana-Farber, Mass General, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, and the National Cancer Institute.” We is Herr Doktor Ultmann, a royal we. “You will get a letter of recommendation from us. Every time you see a place, you will rank every one of them until that point. Then you will call and tell us what your choice is.”
- 2016, Ralph E. Rodriguez, “I Digress: Reading Chicano Narrative and Manuel Muñoz’s “Monkey, Sí””, in William Orchard, Yolanda Padilla, editors, Bridges, Borders, and Breaks: History, Narrative, and Nation in Twenty-First-Century Chicana/o Literary Criticism, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, →ISBN:
- The narrator remarks, “[W]e know that Nestor shouldn’t drink that drink (Alice! Dorothy!) but the anger blooming in his chest will cause him to see one of the men and think he is a good-looking man. (We hate to admit that the men are good-looking.) We know, even through their clothes, that they are slick as seals and hard” (174). The content of the two parentheticals signal that this is a royal we speaking; its royal we tone is a blend of a camp sensibility with a genuine pathos for poor Nestor. It is a mock royal we that goes over the top with its tone to make a serious point.
- 2018, Mindy Neff, The Doctor’s Instant Family, →ISBN:
- “If I had the energy, I’d object to your high-handed bossiness.” / “Mmm, I’ll give you a rain check, how’s that? Now, we need to get you out of these clothes.” / “I’ve got a headache, Chance. I think I can still manage to undress on my own.” / He grinned. “That was one of those royal we’s. […]”
- 2020, Christopher Ruocchio, Demon in White (The Sun Eater; 3), New York, N.Y.: DAW Books, →ISBN, page 18:
- He let his hand drop and, without preamble, said, “I am old, cousin. I would see this war end before my reign does.” The royal we was gone again, but he amended the breach as he continued. “You are thinking that we do not look old, but you are palatine. […]”
- 2021, Eean Grimshaw, Menno H. Reijven, ““We Have a Big Crowd”: The Different Referents of the First-Person Plural in U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Talk on Entertainment-Political Interviews”, in Monika Kirner-Ludwig, editor, Fresh Perspectives on Major Issues in Pragmatics, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, →ISBN:
- Regarding we, scholars have developed taxonomies clarifying potential referents: a common distinction is between inclusive we, referencing both speaker and hearer (we instead of you and I), exclusive we, referencing speaker and a group not including the hearer (we meaning we without you), and a royal we referencing only the speaker, as traditionally used by a sovereign (Fontaine 2006; Íñigo-Mora 2004).
- 2021, Stanton Wortham, Angela Reyes, “Central tools and techniques”, in Discourse Analysis Beyond the Speech Event, 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxon, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 50:
- For example, in lines 021–022, Mr. Bader says we in “excuse me skateboard people, we are recognizing the order of events.” It is not immediately clear whom we refers to in this case. There are at least four possibilities: an inclusive we, an exclusive we, a “royal we” and a “patronizing we.” We might refer inclusively to Mr. Bader and all of the students in the room. We might refer exclusively to Mr. Bader and only some of the students in the room (for example, perhaps not the “skateboard people”). In its “royal” form, we might refer to Mr. Bader alone, speaking about himself in the plural because of his social status.
- 2021, Kate G. Smith, You’ve Got Mail, London: Orion Books, →ISBN:
- She’s still droning on about the conference using the royal we because she likes to pretend that her bosses care enough to involve her in their decisions. / ‘There’s a large new prospective client going. We need you to secure them.’
Hypernyms
[edit]- (plural we used by a sovereign): majestic plural
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]plural we used by a sovereign
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