A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978

Indefinite YOU and THEY
Sound symbols

The pronouns you and they are often used without specific referents. You usually refers to the group to which the speaker feels that the addressee, and perhaps he himself, belongs; they refers to a group that does not include the speaker or the addressee.

When you go there, they tell you to wait.

They say it’s going to rain tomorrow.

If you want to learn a foreign language, you have to practice speaking.

Formal English rejects the use of these pronouns, though they are extremely frequent in ordinary language. The indefinite pronoun one is used a great deal in England, but is not so popular in the United States.

One has to be prepared for bad weather when one plans an outdoor affair.

The noun people is often used instead of they.

People drink a lot of wine in Italy. (Instead of: They drink . . .)

People is also used instead of them when an indefinite word is needed as an object.

You’ve got to be nice to people if you want them to like you.

In regional and dialectal English, a man, and certain other expressions are used with indefinite meaning.

In some parts of the West, a man still needs a horse in order to travel.