New & horrid task - our first review/Spying etc

[corinthum]

> Ginger, who thought that y'all was the nominative case and you'uns
was the objective case, but was informed that "you" is plural and
"thou" and "thee" are singular.  Let's get our grammer up to code.
(note: This is one of the rare occasions where "you is" and "thee are"
is actually proper grammer!)


Well, let's get the full story, shall we?  All you never wanted to
know about English second person pronouns (courtesy of
http://www.etymonline.com/columns/thee.htm):

THEE and THOU

The pronoun of the second person in English grammar used to break down
like this:

Nominative singular: THOU
Nominative plural: YE
Objective singular: THEE
Objective plural: YOU

In the Middle Ages, people began to use plural forms in all cases, at
first as a sign of respect to superiors, then as a courtesy to equals.
By the 1600s, the singular forms had come to represent familiarity and
lack of status, and fell from use except in the case of a few
dialects, notably in the industrial north of England. People in
Lancashire north of the Rossendale Forest and Yorkshire used to be
well known for their use of the singular second person pronouns tha
(nom.) and thee (acc.). For religious reasons, the Quakers also
retained the familiar forms, though generally in such a way that thee
was used in all cases, along with the third person of the verb (thee
has where grammar would dictate thou hast), and they brought it to
America, where it was current in entire neighborhoods of Philadelphia
till the 1890s and in some farms in the hinterland for perhaps another
generation after that.

So what began as a clear distinction based on number turned into a
distinction based on formality and social status.

Languages like Japanese and (especially) Indonesian have a variety of
words for "you" depending on the social status of the speaker and
addressee(s). "It's a nightmare trying to determine which form to use
so that you won't offend anyone," an online friend once told me.

Otto Jespersen, in "Philosophy of Grammar" (1924), briefly traced the
reason that the plural came to mean the formal in the second person
pronoun in Indo-European languages. "When a person speaks of himself
as "we" instead of "I" it may in some cases be due to a modest
reluctance to obtrude his own person on his hearers or readers; he
hides his own opinion or action behind that of others. But the
practice may even more frequently be due to a sense of superiority, as
in the 'plural of majesty.' This was particularly influential in the
case of the Roman emperors who spoke of themselves as nos and required
to be addressed as vos. This in course of time led to the French way
of addressing all superiors (and later through courtesy all equals,
especially strangers) with the plural pronoun vous. In the Middle Ages
this fashion spread to many countries."

Jespersen gives several instances of the "plural of social inequality"
from Italian, Danish and Russian, along with illustrations of the
grammatical irregularities that often result, and concludes,
"Politeness and servility are not always free from a comic tinge."

An author from 1653 wrote that the use of "thou" was generally
contemptuous, or "familiar caressing," and that custom required the
plural "you" when addressing one person.

In English, the shift can be illustrated by the persistence of the
Quakers in using thee when speaking to one person, which began as a
provocative and deliberate flouting of custom in the name of social
equality and ended up being a mere peculiarity of speech, not
recognized as anti-social by themselves or by non-Quakers.

"God is no respecter of persons" was one of the Quakers' favorite
lines from the Bible. In their own apologies, their speech peculiarity
was lumped with other social causes. Robert Proud, in his "History of
Pennsylvania in North America" (1797), wrote of, "Their disuse of vain
compliments, and flattering titles, bowing, kneeling, and uncovering
the head to mankind; and their using the singular language, thou and
thee, to a single person, in discourse, according to the true form of
speech, though so contrary to the general practice of people in
common; believing all tokens of adoration and worship belong to God
only; and that plain, but civil language, and true speeches are most
becoming to professors and followers of truth."

William Penn hinted that that early Quakers found this deliberate
flouting of linguistic convention a useful way to provoke their
enemies: "They also used the plain language of thou and thee to a
single person, whatsoever was his degree among men. And, indeed, the
wisdom of God, was much seen, in bringing forth this people, in so
plain an appearance: for it was a close and distinguishing test upon
the spirits of those, they came among; shewing their insides, and what
predominated, notwithstanding their high and great profession of
religion. This among the rest, sounded so harsh to many of them, that
they took very great offence at it; forgetting the language they use
to God, in their prayers, and the common stile of the scriptures; and
that it is an absolute and essential propriety of speech." ("Rise and
Progress of the Quakers," 1694)

By the early 1800s, however, the use was no longer felt as
disrespectful, merely quaint.

In the King James Version, God is addressed in the familiar -- "Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done," etc. Someone said this is to
emphasize that the God of the Bible is not an unapproachable ruler but
a God who has a relationship with his people. I don't know, but many
modern people only encounter thee and thou in biblical speech, and,
since people seem to think of God as mighty and remote, they probably
hear thee as a marker of servility and respect. Thus the
once-too-familiar pronoun now has the reputation of being servile.

In the Quaker communities it had the same effect, I think. They were a
serious, weighty sect, usually well-off, always from the oldest
families. Their gravity commanded respect, and non-Quakers in 19th
century Pennsylvania almost always seem to have used "thee" when
addressing them.

The awkwardness of not having a true singular "you" has led some
languages and dialect to invent one. According to a posting on a
listserv that I subscribe to, The Dutch plural, jij, was used as
polite singular until by the 16th century the true singular, du, was a
literary rarity. But then jij itself began to be felt as too intimate
or condescending for a "plural of social inequality," and it was
replaced by Uwe Edelheid, meaning "Your Nobility," later shortened to
U E and then U, and recently in spelling lowercased to u. Meanwhile, a
new familiar plural jullie has appeared, and a dialect singular form,
gij, has got into standard Dutch as dialectal/biblical/poetic.

In the American South, there is a real grammatical difference between
"you" (singular) and "you all" (plural). Other regions of the nation
ridicule this as redneck ignorance, but it compensates well for the
loss of the distinction between the singular and plural second person
pronouns. It is accepted even among the most educated and literate
Southerners.

Douglas Harper