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bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   3349 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

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Does the pronoun "you" in English playing quadruple role (2nd person singular subject, 2nd person singular object, 2nd person plural subject, 2nd person object) harm communication, or would it be better if in English the distinction between subject and object in pronouns wouldn't exist, given that in English nouns aren't declined according to subject/object but only by number (singular/plural) and possessive? But even then the question if creating a distinction between 2nd person singular and plural, as there is in 1st person (I/we) and in 3rd (he/they), is beneficial.

I've always thought that English could do with a second person plural, like 'vous' in French. Being able to distinguish between talking to a group and an individual in a group setting is very helpful.

Of course, language being what it is, English speakers have basically created alternatives out of necessity (y'all, youse, you guys etc). Give it a few hundred years and I'm sure we'll be using them as words in their own right.

“Ye” means “vous.” (O come all ye faithful). It never meant “the,” as in “ye olde castle.” We also had “wit,” which meant “me and exactly one other person.” We threw away perfectly good pronouns.

'Ye' is still used a lot in Ireland. Up north you'll hear words like 'yous' and 'yousens', Dubliners also have 'yis'.

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