Joanne, According to Fowler (H. W., that is, not Roger: _A Dictionary of Modern English Usage_), both rponouns are useable. One use is numeral ("One double-checks his quotations, but another does not.") -- the possessive is someone other than the person designated as 'one'; the other is impersonal ("One double-check's one's quotations as well as one's spelling.") -- the possessive is the same as the 'one'. I'm not sure I understand why Fowler calls it 'impersonal'. It seems to me that it's really 'presonal', but who am I to disagree with Fowler? It seems by the examples you gave that your students were taught the opposite of what Fowler says. Their teacher seems to have gotten it backwards. Paul D. ----- Original Message ---- From: Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 4:01:55 PM Subject: Agreement with "one" as antecedent A question came up in a class today about the indefinite-pronoun use of "one", as in "one wonders what would happen next". Several students have been taught that, once "one" is used, subsequent references must be a personal pronoun, e.g. "One should always double- check his or her quotations." I'm not finding much on this in the grammar and usage guides on my shelf; in my experience, the rule is "once 'one', always 'one' ", hence "one should always double-check one's quotations". The reasoning is that "one" is already a pronoun (which isn't particularly consistent as an explanation, since the pronouns "someone" and "everyone", etc. take a personal pronoun). I am wondering where the teachers who taught these students got this rule. I found one website which agrees with my experience of the matter. Anyone have experience of this? I enforce the "once 'one', always 'one' " rule, since I believe this is what is expected by people who care. Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics Linguistics Minor Advisor English Department California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo E-mail: [log in to unmask] Tel.: 805.756.2184 Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596 Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374 URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/