The power of the French "on" in editorials

Abstract

The French elite daily, Le Monde, in its stylistic guide, explicitly recommends its journalists to stay away from ON, the third person singular indefinite pronoun : "l'usage répété du "on" est déconseillé" (Le Monde 2002: 48). However, 237 ON have been recorded in 101 editorials from a corpus of 150 editorials published from August 1999 to July 2001. Le Monde's purpose in advocating the avoidance of ON is that of being clear and precise. Thus, why does it include it so often? This article looks at who ON "covers" under its guise of anonymity, where it intervenes in the hierarchical structure of the argumentation, what it says, and to which ends Le Monde lets ON's voice be heard. It appears that the danger and power of ON, the reason for prohibiting its use and the necessity behind its actual use hold in one word: its indefiniteness.

Key words: Indefinite pronoun 'ON', Newspaper editorials, French newspapers, stylistic guides.