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[Bernardo de La Paz]

47. You can't win, or rather, one can't win or maybe I can't win. When I wrote "you"

When I wrote "you", {on edit - in my first post in this thread} I was writing generally, in the plural, really meaning us the body politic, we the people. Your post that I was responding to spoke of generic groups like "capitalists" and even included the word or phrase "the public", but you forgot that.

At other times, when I have thought there might be some confusion, I have written something like "one can" or "a person can", but then people complain that the language is stiff and awkward.

So I can't win. Whether I write "you" or "one" or "a person", someone will object.

In this case, you chose to interpret the "you" as being personal. It was not. If you want an apology, you can have it. I apologize for not writing more clearly in a way that you couldn't misinterpret.

Most people, even if they had thought I was advising them personally, would accept the advice, especially if they have been actively learning all their lives. Even if they thought it necessary to explain that, they would not derail their own thread to start a fight over a non-existent but perceived slight.