The opposite of the "Royal we"
The “Royal We” is a term to indicate that, when someone is ostensibly speaking about a group of people, they’re actually referring to themselves as an individual. Someone I know (whom I will not name for fear of incriminating myself) does quite the opposite, in that they use the word “we” to mean “everyone apart from me” or more usually “you”. For example:
• “We need to mow that lawn” means “You need to mow that lawn”
• “We ought to fix the tiles in the bathroom” meaning “Fix the tiles in the bathroom”
Is there a term for this kind of terminology? Apologies if this seems a little fatuous but I’m genuinely interested.
I have always heard of this as the "military" we. As in, an officer will say "we need to take that hill" meaning the enlisted people, and not the officer, need to take the hill.
Wikipedia calls this the "dictorial we".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We
The dictorial "we"
The dictorial we is similar to both the editorial and author's "we" but more commonly used in spousal conversations or relating to them. More often used by one person having or showing a tendency to tell people what to do in an autocratic way. Take for example the following portion of a conversation:
- As soon as we get the rest of the brick work done (in progress) this is part of the plan...
This person is using the dictorial "we" and implying that the other will be doing the work and that they are currently behind and has more waiting afterwards. This form looks nicer and comes across as being less harsh.
There is no special term for this use of we, because there is nothing grammatically or semantically peculiar about it.
‘We need to mow the lawn’ does not mean ‘You need to mow the lawn’. What it means is something like ‘Our family, considered as a group, has the responsibility for mowing the lawn’. Given that the speaker is a member of that group, there is nothing unusual about using we for it. The meaning of the utterance does not specify how the family will discharge this collective responsibility, that is, to whom it will allocate the execution of the physical actions of mowing. It leaves it open whether that will be this or that member of the family, or perhaps somebody from a commercial lawn-mowing service that the family may choose to engage.
Of course, it is possible that when somebody in a particular family says ‘We need to mow the lawn’, there will be an expectation that one specific member of the family (perhaps the one who has always done it before) will do the physical mowing. That is, however, a matter of the practices established within that family; it is not a matter of the meaning of English words.
Similarly, to use the example that appears in another answer on this page, when an officer says ‘We need to take that hill’, he means something like ‘Our unit (considered collectively) needs to take that hill’. Given that the officer is a member of the unit, there is nothing unusual about his referring to the unit as we. The officer does not by this sentence say anything as to which members of the unit will perform which specific actions; that will be specified by the commands that will follow.
I believe that it can uninformally be called the "patronizing we."
The patronizing we is used sometimes in place of "you" to address a second party, hinting a facetious assurance that the one asked is not alone in his situation, that "I am with you, we are in this together". A doctor may ask a patient: And how are we feeling today? This usage is emotionally non-neutral and usually bears a condescending, ironic, praising, or some other flavor, depending on intonation: "Aren't we looking cute?"
Source: World Heritage Encyclopedia