3

I was at my house and my mom asked me to get chips. I got the chips and said

These ones?

Then my mom said "yes" and then my dad said "It's best to just say these". Was my statement correct?

fev
  • 33,009
Bob
  • 71

3 Answers3

2

You were utterly correct. If you just say these?, that would be the use of these as a determinative in a fused Determiner-Head construction. If, on the other hand, you say these ones, that would be a canonical noun phrase with a determinative in Determiner function, and the common noun one(s) as a nominal phrase functioning as Head within the larger NP (noun phrase).

Both are grammatical in standard English. For further information consult The Cambridge Grammar of the English language (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002).

Araucaria - Him
  • 47,146
0

An answer from a web site:

https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/25/these-ones/

these ones

By itself, there’s nothing wrong with the word “ones” as a plural: “surrounded by her loved ones.” However, “this one” should not be pluralized to “these ones.” Just say “these.”

The author, a retired professor of literature, deals with the question of what is an error (thus, presumably, not correct) as follows:

What is an error in English?

The concept of language errors is a fuzzy one. I’ll leave to linguists the technical definitions. Here we’re concerned only with deviations from the standard use of English as judged by sophisticated users such as professional writers, editors, teachers, and literate executives and personnel officers. The aim of this site is to help you avoid low grades, lost employment opportunities, lost business, and titters of amusement at the way you write or speak.

Xanne
  • 14,836
  • But is "these ones" correct? – Bob Oct 24 '22 at 21:37
  • 2
    No, it’s not correct. It’s non-standard English. – Xanne Oct 24 '22 at 21:44
  • It's redundant and not idiomatic. – Barmar Oct 24 '22 at 21:45
  • There's nothing wrong with it. – Hot Licks Oct 25 '22 at 02:33
  • 1
    Utter rubbish. Sorry, but there's nothing to to say that these ones is incorrect at all. Look in any vetted academic grammar of English. Literature professors may or may not be experts in syntax, or in the use of standard English. – Araucaria - Him Oct 28 '22 at 23:03
  • 1
    Several thousand hits in the NOW (News on the Web) corpus would disagree with the claim that 'these ones' is non-standard English, or incorrect English. At best, we could say it's stylistically undesirable according to some. – DW256 Oct 29 '22 at 03:11
0

These/those ones may sound informal, it may sound redundant (though I beg to differ, at least in some contexts), but it is definitely not incorrect.

Grammarphobia gets thumbs up from me for its articles about the matter, because though it acknowledges their own dislike of the usage of this phrase, it nevertheless gives clear evidence of its legitimacy:

As we said then, we don’t like this usage. But we could find no authoritative evidence against it, and on the contrary there was reliable evidence in its favor.

The linguist Nicholas Widdows reports finding examples in the British National Corpus of “these” and “these ones” used in different senses. Here’s how he explains the difference:

Faced with an array of jelly babies I might point to a red one and say, ‘I like these ones.’ The fused head [plain these] could be misinterpreted as referring to all jelly babies; the ‘ones’ says more clearly ‘this type.’

Exactly my point, ones is not always redundant. You can sense that these/those can be more general than these/those (particular) ones in certain contexts.

The same article states:

The fact that we dislike a usage doesn’t make it incorrect. Nor does the fact that some online language junkies claim it’s wrong, without offering any evidence to support their opinions.

You argue that “ones” is redundant in “these ones,” but do you really find “one” redundant in the phrases “this one” and “that one” for the same reason?

And what about if we add a modifier to “these ones” or “those ones”? Would you object to “these heavy ones,” “those black ones,” and so on?

I would add to this, that if the black ones is fine, who's to say that these/those black ones is not? Also if this means the one over here, then is here redundant in

Shall I use this knife here (Cambridge)?

As a reliable source, Grammarphobia quotes the Cambridge History of the English Language, which

indicates that “ones” here is an anaphoric pronoun—a pronoun that refers back to another word or phrase. In this case the pronoun is preceded by a determiner, a modifier like “these” or “those.”

Cambridge says “those ones” first showed up in the 19th century, and “these ones” in the 20th. However, we’ve found many formal and informal examples of “those ones” going back to the 1600s, and of “these ones” dating from the 1700s.

So there you go, you can use this phrase with a clean conscience, just be aware that you might displease some. I don't see the point in correcting what you said, especially that this is an informal conversation. In writing, adding an adjective between these/those and ones might render the phrase stylistically more acceptable. But I find it used even on its own in plenty of official texts. If you read on this article from Grammarphobia, you will find some good examples.

fev
  • 33,009