My wife was discussing pudding consistency this morning and used a sentence along the lines of, "I only like the pudding you make". I blinked and asked if she really liked the pudding I make and she replied, "No, I mean the pudding you make, you know, like if I were to make some pudding". She was using the "you" in a sense of a hypothetical person, I guess, like saying, "That's what you do in a crisis" when commenting on a riot scene in the news. You're not using "you" to refer to the person you're speaking to, but rather a form of general humanity.
Anyhow, is there a term for such a usage such that you might be able to answer, "Oh, sorry, I was using 'you' in the [term] context, not referring to you specifically"?
