We were perusing the New York Times magazine this morning, moving with the gentle lethargy of a man with three-quarters of a cup of coffee left to drink, when what should we find but a vicious attack on our writing style. It began:
Theodore Rockwell, who served as technical director for the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-propulsion program in the 1950s and ’60s, shared a telling anecdote about his onetime boss, the famously irascible Adm. Hyman G. Rickover. “One time he caught me using the editorial we, as in ‘we will get back to you by. . . .’ ” Rockwell recalled in his memoir, “The Rickover Effect.” “He explained brusquely that only three types of individual were entitled to such usage: ‘The head of a sovereign state, a schizophrenic and a pregnant woman. Which are you, Rockwell?’ ”
Apparently, “nosism”, as it is known (from the Latin pronoun nos), is to be eschewed by the self-respecting writer. The author, Ben Zimmer, does allow that the first-person plural narration has been used effectively at times (he notes Faulker, we would add Eugenides to the list), and that there is also occasional use of the “inclusive we”, in which the term is meant to include the reader, but contrasts that with the “royal or editorial we”, where “we” is meant to refer to a singular speaker, not the reader. This latter form, we are told, is gutless, self-important and pedantic.
We must admit that we chose the “Wallyhood We” on a whim, at the moment our fingers rested on the keyboard to write the first post. If recollection serves, we were influenced by our own tag-line “news, gossip and goings-on from around the Wallingford neighborhood.” If it was good enough for gossip columnists, it was good enough for us.
Zimmer concludes:
An equally colorful but less common American retort to the inclusive first-person plural pronoun is “We? You got a mouse in your pocket?” Curt Johnson, publisher of the Chicago literary magazine December, remarked in a 1966 article that he heard the line from a student talking back to a college instructor. Many other regional variants have sprung up, with “rat” or “frog” standing in for “mouse.” Another more sex-specific inquiry is about “a mouse in your purse.” Dabblers in nosism beware: whether it’s tapeworms or rodents, saying we where I would do can expose you to accusations of infestation.
Infestation? We are mortified!
Self-important? I try to remember to use “we” in my work emails so as to acknowledge that we work as a team and not to take credit by myself.
We love it. Continue using it and we will still enjoy it.
Is it not correct that the “editorial we” is used in journalism only when speaking for the entire editorial board, that is, an official position of the publication?
No, it’s not correct only in that there isn’t “a” correct. There’s no rulebook, just traditions, and there is a long tradition of “we” in journalism, although I’ll grant that, outside of editorials, it’s mostly gossip columnists and the like. For example, the theater reviewer for New York Magazine: http://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/63187/
We do appreciate you counting us as journalism, though!