terminology - Is there a grammatical name for the third-person 'you'?


I've had this conversation several times in my life, where I use a second-person pronoun when actually using the third-person:



"If you were dressed up as a clown at night holding black balloons, I would be suspicious too!"
"I would never dress like a clown."



Or exempting the 'if' from the sentence:



"You choose to join the organization, then you're responsible for that organization's beliefs and policies."


"I am not a member of that organization"



It's actually hard to come up with examples for this off the top of my head. The point is that I use 'you' as a third person pronoun because it's hypothetical, but it's taken literally, and I want to be able to tell the person I'm talking to what the name of the grammatical construct is so that he or she doesn't misunderstand me.



Answer



I believe it's called "generic you." From Wikipedia:



In English grammar and in particular in casual English, generic you, impersonal you or indefinite you is the pronoun you in its use in referring to an unspecified person, as opposed to its use as the second person pronoun.


The generic you is primarily used as a colloquial or less formal substitute for one.1[2] For instance,


"Brushing one's teeth is healthy."

can be expressed less formally as


"Brushing your teeth is healthy."

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