Transcription
A Twitter post by Dana Schwartz @DanaSchwartzzz that reads Whenever I scold my cat, I use the royal we" so she doesn’t feel so ashamed. “We don’t eat that. We don’t chew on electrical cords," I say. It’s as if I, too, have a problem with eating wires or plastic I found on the floor and she and I are working on that problem together.
I guess it depends how you look at it. From my point of view the speaker isn’t actually talking about themselves. That is the “royal” part. And I mean she does say “as if” to back up that yes, she is not actually including herself.
The “
royalwe” refers to royalty referring to themselves individually in the plural form.The royal “we” refers to me (the speaker) and my majesty. It does not include other people.
This is also why people don’t ask royalty anything about themselves directly, but always ask about their majesty or some other grandiose trait appropriate to their station. It’s honestly funny how ridiculous people can get with their boot licking that this is still considered normal.
But it’s not.
We, the king, say this with all authority - the “royal we” is used when one wants to say “I” but make it sound more grandiose and important.
What the woman in the OP describes is the “patronising we”. Yes, it’s also a nosism, but it’s very much not the “royal we”.