Many times we use words and phrases without any idea of where they may have originated from. Take the word "We" for example if you wanted to find out about its origins and usage you could go to wikipedia.org/wiki/We and find how it is used in other countries and languages.
Most of us are not only familiar with it as a pronoun in the English language, we use it in everyday conversation without a thought. We, the word is sometimes over worked.
The expression "We" (as a royal we used by monarchs or popes), came into being in 1169 when English King Henry II, assuming the common theory of "divine right of kings," you know, where the monarch acts together with God. He used "we" as "God and I...," at least that is how the legend has grown.
We, was also a dystopian novel in the form of a diary written by Yevgeny Zamyatin, a Russian, it was completed in 1921. This novel was a response to his personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and the time he spent in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond. As well as about when he worked in the Tyne shipyards at nearby Wallsend during the First World War. It was on Tyneside that he observed the rationalization of labor on a large scale. The first English translation of We was published in 1924. It is believed he was influenced by "The New Utopia" (1891) by Jerome K. Jerome. (derived from the above link on wikipedia.org).
And since then the word We has been used for various slogans, and titles, but really came into its own with the advent of the internet. A Google search of the word We finds 4,520,000 hits. It is used in WeTV.com, wecansolveit.org, werock.org, it’s used in the Barack Obama Music Video on YouTube titled "Yes We Can", the National Endowment for the Humanities website is wethepeople.gov. Many more websites use we in their addresses as well, like WeDemocrats.org.
Editors and Commentators use the word we when giving their opinions in the various media. By doing so they are casting themselves in the role of spokesperson for those readers or viewers who agree with him or her.
I hate it when its used in a patronizing way especially by the various doctors that I see on a regular basis, when they walk in and say "how are we feeling today" I want to scream at them "I don’t know how WE feel Doc, but I don’t feel worth a darn". It maybe non-neutral, but can carry much more meaning, for example a co-worker says "my aren’t we looking nice today?" makes me want to scream "hey, I’m fine, but you aren’t looking so hot", but common courtesy makes me keep my mouth shut, (sometimes).
We may also refer to: We (Charles Lindbergh's autobiography); We, the albino two-headed rat snake; WE: Women's Entertainment, a television network; Wé, a town in the Islands Province, New Caledonia; Wè, a language of Côte d'Ivoire; WE, a Dutch clothing brand; We (a music group); We, a film about the words of Indian author/activist Arundhati Roy; We, a hit song by singer Joy Williams on her album Genesis. And don’t forget many merchants use it for advertising a service such as in "we deliver".
Wee, is used in Ireland and Scotland as a word for the English word small. And we have all heard the word Wee used as in "take a wee". Nintendo used the spelling Wii (pronounced "we"), in their most recent video game console. And the pronunciation of the word (in French) Oui is we for the word yes. Even Al Gore is getting on the bandwagon with his new organization We.
Thomas Jefferson and the writers of the Declaration of Independence began the second paragraph of that august document with the word "We" and refers to it throughout as a reference for "We The People", meaning the collective body of citizens of these United States of America. The Constitution of the same United States begins with the words, "We the people of the United States".
When I formed WeDemocrats.org group, I expressed a wish to also have a publication both online and in print, along with a weekly radio show or podcast to further our Progressive agendas. When Norla Antinoro contact me in response to an email I sent out asking for volunteers, I had no idea what a valuable addition she would be to the organization. Almost single handily she has forged a masterpiece of online publication. The radioshow/podcast has yet to find a champion.
WE! Was chosen for our weekly online magazine (it is short for "We The People"), and a more fitting name could never be found as it is truly a publication "of, by, and for the people". WE! Lists among its authors many of the foremost Progressive writers in America today.
So again I ask you how important is WE!/we?