thou, thee, thine

[vowlshift]

I have read somewhere that the big reason for the loss of the familiar form of pronouns was due to the need to differentiate the state-sanctioned relionists from the rebel faction known as the Religious Society of Friends, aka Quakers. Since Quakers believed that everyone was equal in the eyes of God and no more or less worthy of respect in human's eyes, they scandalized and threatened the status quo of the Church of England, and hence the Monarchy. Amid the social ferment of 17th century England, this tenet of equality was perhaps the most dangerous idea to every institution in existence. No one who was not a Quaker wanted to be mistaken for one and persecuted, or executed, for their new religion. Therefore, the familiar pronouns had to be expunged from daily speech for one's own preservation. An interesting use of the formal and familiar pronouns (with their implicit undertones) exists in Shakespeare's Richard III, act 1, scene 2, as Richard verbally insinuates himself into Anne in her grieving. The mock respect of "you" and the angry denigrations of "thou" reinforce the evil and emotion of this confrontation of this assault.
Dost thou possess any info that adds to this?

[Rico]

All that I hast, sir, is a link to the column in question.

What do thou, thee, and thine mean...

Allows others to find the column in question. Thanks for your participation.

[John W. Kennedy]

The Quaker hypothesis is tempting, but thou was already beginning to be folded into you before George Fox was born. Perhaps the “thou is for God” meme was already emerging.

[Bookkeeper]

The use of the second person plural to replace the singular form seems to be a trend in other languages as well. Both French and German have replaced the singular form with the plural for formal use, and retain the singular form for intimate/informal use only, such as speaking to lovers, family, friends, and children. (I recall my boss in the '80s, a dignified Francophone lady in her 60s, coming back from a lunchtime bank visit fuming that the teller had presumed to tutoyer* her.) Give them another century or so and they may lose the singular form as well.

(*address her in the second person singular)

[Floater]

A French friend has told me that there's an increasing use of "tu" instead of "Vous" in France.

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by Floater

A French friend has told me that there's an increasing use of "tu" instead of "Vous" in France.

Interesting. I'm sure this parallels increasing "informality", of many kinds, in many social and professional situations, in recent decades, in much of the world. (Linguist John McWhorter, in his book Doing our Own Thing, documented this as reaching a sort of tipping point around 1968, at least in the US).

Increasing use of "tu" would be a part of all this, I'm sure (and the parallel development of mass media, and now social media, oriented toward youth markets.)

(In the Spanish-speaking world, some countries have long tended to use "tu" more than others -- in Mexico, for example, you switch to "tu" pretty soon after getting to know someone, whereas in Colombia, you almost never use "tu" -- even your dog is "usted"!).

This development means that Romance languages are returning to where they started. "Vous" (and its cognates) was never meant to be a formal singular at all, but a normal plural! (Still an alternative meaning, in French anyway). If it disappears as a formal singular, the personal pronoun paradigm will be back to a more "rational" form, something it has lacked for around 500 years.

[Powers]

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

Perhaps the “thou is for God” meme was already emerging.

That's what I'd always been told.


Powers &8^]

[Learjeff]

Sounds a bit like the way "y'all", which was once a plural, has become something of a formal, and the plural formal is "all y'all".

However, I once read a truism for etymology: if it seems reasonable, it's probably wrong.

[Maus Magill]

Originally Posted by Learjeff

Sounds a bit like the way "y'all", which was once a plural, has become something of a formal, and the plural formal is "all y'all".

However, I once read a truism for etymology: if it seems reasonable, it's probably wrong.

I will have to ask for a cite for this. Please not that same old, tired email joke about how southerners speak, either.

I have never heard "y'all" used as anything other than as a second person plural pronoun.

[ftg]

Originally Posted by Maus Magill

I have never heard "y'all" used as anything other than as a second person plural pronoun.

Then you've never been around Southerners or you are not paying attention.

See my post in a recent thread relating to this.

Just watch an episode of Paula Deen, y'all.

[Senegoid]

Originally Posted by Maus Magill

I have never heard "y'all" used as anything other than as a second person plural pronoun.

Maybe that's a common misunderstanding? Here's my (former) misunderstanding: Not being from New Yawk, and not speaking New Yawkese, I had always thought they say "youse" for "you", in any of its declensions. It was only within recent memory that I figured out that "youse" is the specifically plural form. (Uh... Have I figured that out right?) I mean... duh... it struck me that "youse" actually sounds like a plural.

So maybe it's easy for a non-native New Yawkese speaker just to misunderstand the language, and so maybe it's easy for a non-native Southernese speaker to misunderstand the language.

Myself, I did understand long ago that we need distinct singular and plural forms for "you", and early on I picked up on the Southern "you-all" or "y'all" as the easily-understood plural form to use. In my own otherwise-non-Southern speech, I youse use it regularly.

[Gagundathar]

American Southerner here. I have heard some folks from South Alabama use the word "y'all" to mean the singular "you". It seems rather pointless to me, but I don't make up the rules.

[Sister Vigilante]

Originally Posted by ftg

Then you've never been around Southerners or you are not paying attention.

See my post in a recent thread relating to this.

Just watch an episode of Paula Deen, y'all.

Um, yeah. Born and raised in Georgia, where Paula Deen is apparently from. And I can't remember ever hearing it except on TV shows or from actual rednecks who don't know any better. She's a fake. If you hear her kids, who she has on her show nowadays, they don't have nearly the fake accent that she has. She's exaggerating and not doing a very good job of it.

Or apparently, she is, since she's fooling all y'all.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

The Quaker hypothesis is tempting, but thou was already beginning to be folded into you before George Fox was born.

Perhaps this explains why the stereotypical Quaker usage is "wrong" with respect to the way the pronouns were used when they had still been generally current in the language.

[Powers]

Originally Posted by Sister Vigilante

If you hear her kids, who she has on her show nowadays, they don't have nearly the fake accent that she has.

Gosh, kids having a less pronounced accent than one of their parents? Yeah, that never happens in real life.

Wikipedia quotes H. L. Mencken: "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, to be sure, you-all indicates a plural, implicit if not explicit, and thus means, when addressed to a single person, 'you and your folks' or the like, but the hundredth time it is impossible to discover any such extension of meaning."


Powers &8^]

[drewder]

Originally Posted by Powers

That's what I'd always been told.


Powers &8^]

I've think it is sweet that in most languages the language used to address God is the most formal, but in English the familiar form was reserved for communication with a personal Heavenly Father.

[Phèdre nó Delaunay]

Originally Posted by ftg

Then you've never been around Southerners or you are not paying attention.

See my post in a recent thread relating to this.

Just watch an episode of Paula Deen, y'all.

Nope, she only uses it as a second person plural too, you're just misunderstanding her. Down here we all use "y'all" only to groups of people. If someone said "y'all" to you alone (as in "y'all should come to our house") they were inviting you and your family as well. "Y'all" is never a singular to a Southern person.

[BigT]

Originally Posted by Powers

Gosh, kids having a less pronounced accent than one of their parents? Yeah, that never happens in real life.

It is common, but it's also quite common that they'd just code switch. Since they don't, it's possible she's the one code switching, if not outright exaggerating for effect.

[ftg]

Originally Posted by Phèdre nó Delaunay

Nope, she only uses it as a second person plural too, you're just misunderstanding her. Down here we all use "y'all" only to groups of people. If someone said "y'all" to you alone (as in "y'all should come to our house") they were inviting you and your family as well. "Y'all" is never a singular to a Southern person.

Good grief. Pay attention some time. Things people have said to me when I'm the only person around:

Clerk at store: "Did y'all find what you were looking for?"

Waitress: "Can I get y'all anything else?"

And on and on. Who could possibly misunderstand this?

And look at the actual Paula Deen quote I gave: "And now we'll put that in a 350 degree oven, y'all."

She uses "y'all" over and over as a generic filler like "um" or "you know".

Southerners are infamous for not obeying rules of grammar, including their own regionalisms.

That "y'all" is only used for 2nd person plural is a complete myth.

[John W. Kennedy]

Originally Posted by ftg

That "y'all" is only used for 2nd person plural is a complete myth.

It is only a complete myth if you have checked every village in the entire South.

[redtail23]

OK, 99.999% of Southerners only use "y'all" as a plural.

Evidently there are a few here and there that 1) don't follow the standard usage, 2) have started using the plural as a formalizer like the Romance languages do (note that all of the examples given were between relative strangers), 3) have been misunderstood (see below) or 4) they're transplants that got confused and just use it incorrectly.

Most times when I've had people tell me that someone used "y'all" as a singular, when they've gotten down to specific exact cases, the hearer misunderstood the usage. For instance, there are one or two specific turns of phrase in which "y'all" is always used, regardless of the number of people addressed. But it's really a figure of speech rather than usage as a singular.

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by ftg

That "y'all" is only used for 2nd person plural is a complete myth.

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

It is only a complete myth if you have checked every village in the entire South.

No. Disproving the claim that it is ONLY used for plural requires just a single counter-example.


As for thou/ you, I heard it was because of the invention of the printing press.
English had a letter thorn, pronounced th. So the word thou would be written as thorn-u. The presses imported from Germany had no letter thorn, so the printers used a Y instead. Thus, thou would be printed as you, but still originally pronounced as thou. And later the pronunciation changed to match the written form.

That's what I heard. I can't find any direct cites, but wiki shows that the was printed as Ye, so it seems plausible.

[John W. Kennedy]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

No. Disproving the claim that it is ONLY used for plural requires just a single counter-example.


As for thou/ you, I heard it was because of the invention of the printing press.
English had a letter thorn, pronounced th. So the word thou would be written as thorn-u. The presses imported from Germany had no letter thorn, so the printers used a Y instead. Thus, thou would be printed as you, but still originally pronounced as thou. And later the pronunciation changed to match the written form.

That's what I heard. I can't find any direct cites, but wiki shows that the was printed as Ye, so it seems plausible.

The chronology doesn’t really work out; þ vanished long before thou did. The only reason that the phantom ye for the survived was that þ^e remained as a popular abbreviation long after þ was out of general use.

[Irishman]

I just went to YouTube and watched a handful of Paula Deen clips. Only one did she use the word y'all, and in all cases she was addressing the audience.

Aside - those clips were painful to watch. Her accent is painful to listen to. Then there was making donuts out of canned biscuits. Really? I thought you put sugar in donut dough, like a cake? Biscuits? Then there was the clip where her son (I presume) is going to tell us how to make meatloaf, and she's in the background trying to watch TV and yelling at him to be quiet or she'll miss her show. And they aired that shit? Oh, and deep fried bacon. And her dog's name is, apparently, Odis.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

The chronology doesn’t really work out; þ vanished long before thou did. The only reason that the phantom ye for the survived was that þ^e remained as a popular abbreviation long after þ was out of general use.

Perhaps the spelling þe for "the" persisted longest in outdoor signage, since that presumably was painted by hand, and therefore less susceptible to the vagaries of printing fonts.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by Spectre of Pithecanthropus

Perhaps the spelling þe for "the" persisted longest in outdoor signage, since that presumably was painted by hand, and therefore less susceptible to the vagaries of printing fonts.

It seems fitting to point out that the handwritten or hand-painted rendition of thorn does look a lot more like the letter "y".

[aldiboronti]

Originally Posted by Spectre of Pithecanthropus

Perhaps this explains why the stereotypical Quaker usage is "wrong" with respect to the way the pronouns were used when they had still been generally current in the language.

The "wrong" usage by Quakers (using thee for the nominative rather than thou) dates back to at least as far as the mid-19th century. I remember reading an article on this in an old Notes & Queries from the 1850s or 60s in which it was commented on. Before seeing that I used to think it was Hollywood getting it wrong (in films like Friendly Persuasion, etc)

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by aldiboronti

The "wrong" usage by Quakers (using thee for the nominative rather than thou) dates back to at least as far as the mid-19th century. I remember reading an article on this in an old Notes & Queries from the 1850s or 60s in which it was commented on. Before seeing that I used to think it was Hollywood getting it wrong (in films like Friendly Persuasion, etc)

The other "wrong" thing about Quaker usage is that the modern third-person-singular conjugation is used with verbs in the second-person-singular. The movie Philadelphia Story has an interesting scene that points out the difference. In a small town library, James Stewart's character Mike responds to the Quaker librarian's "What does thee wish?" with "Dost thou have a washroom". Strictly speaking, Mike's usage probably isn't much more correct, because the use of "to do" as an auxiliary in the interrogative. Still, it points up how an educated person in those days would have used it. (In those days, just about everyone who made it through college read Chaucer at some point.)

I've also noticed that in the ST:TOS episode "Amok Time", the Vulcan ruler T'Pau uses Quaker English ("Thee speaks?").

[dropzone]

FWIW, in central Virginia 50 years ago "y'all" could be either singular or plural. There seemed to be a slight pronunciation difference, too. Don't recall hearing "all y'all" ever.

[Sister Vigilante]

Originally Posted by Spectre of Pithecanthropus

The other "wrong" thing about Quaker usage is that the modern third-person-singular conjugation is used with verbs in the second-person-singular. The movie Philadelphia Story has an interesting scene that points out the difference. In a small town library, James Stewart's character Mike responds to the Quaker librarian's "What does thee wish?" with "Dost thou have a washroom". Strictly speaking, Mike's usage probably isn't much more correct, because the use of "to do" as an auxiliary in the interrogative. Still, it points up how an educated person in those days would have used it. (In those days, just about everyone who made it through college read Chaucer at some point.)

I've also noticed that in the ST:TOS episode "Amok Time", the Vulcan ruler T'Pau uses Quaker English ("Thee speaks?").

They continued that usage in some of the books too. I believe it's their formal way of speaking; Spock never uses it.

[Sister Vigilante]

Originally Posted by dropzone

FWIW, in central Virginia 50 years ago "y'all" could be either singular or plural. There seemed to be a slight pronunciation difference, too. Don't recall hearing "all y'all" ever.

Ever heard a Beastie Boys song?

"Listen all yall; it's a sabotage!"

Of course they aren't southern so they don't count.

[Full Tilt Boogie]

Originally Posted by Floater

A French friend has told me that there's an increasing use of "tu" instead of "Vous" in France.

This is true. I'm Paris at least once a month and it's now noticeable.

[Powers]

Originally Posted by Sister Vigilante

They continued that usage in some of the books too. I believe it's their formal way of speaking; Spock never uses it.

Nor does a young T'Pau in Enterprise.


Powers &8^]

[Powers]

Originally Posted by Spectre of Pithecanthropus

Strictly speaking, Mike's usage probably isn't much more correct, because the use of "to do" as an auxiliary in the interrogative.

Normally I wouldn't pedantically point out the lack of a verb in your latter clause, but in this case it's impeding my ability to understand what you mean. Why is "Dost thou have" incorrect?


Powers &8^]

[John W. Kennedy]

“Dost thou have...?” is not technically bad grammar, but it’s bad writing. Someone who lived at the time when thou was still current would generally have said “Hast thou...?” instead. It’s like saying, today, “I do have....” where “I have....” would do.

[DSYoungEsq]

I live in South Carolina, right below Charlotte, NC. I have heard locals (not implants) use "y'all" to address both singular and plural "you". I've been singularly addressed by someone from the south using "y'all" as far back as 1980, when a counter-worker at Dairy Queen in Johnson City, TN, addressed my singular self as I walked in the door with the term "y'all." Thus, anyone who asserts that Southerners only use "y'all" as a plural is making a false statement.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

“Dost thou have...?” is not technically bad grammar, but it’s bad writing. Someone who lived at the time when thou was still current would generally have said “Hast thou...?” instead. It’s like saying, today, “I do have....” where “I have....” would do.

So it would be wrong if you were trying to replicate 16th-century English speech, but for 20th-century speech incorporating "thou" and "thee" it's just fine.

[Learjeff]

Originally Posted by Powers

Gosh, kids having a less pronounced accent than one of their parents? Yeah, that never happens in real life.

Wikipedia quotes H. L. Mencken: "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, to be sure, you-all indicates a plural, implicit if not explicit, and thus means, when addressed to a single person, 'you and your folks' or the like, but the hundredth time it is impossible to discover any such extension of meaning."

Powers &8^]

HL is out of date, or just ain't from 'round hea.

As a Yankee, I noticed very clearly the tendency for many Southerners to use "y'all" in the singular, and particularly when talking to someone they didn't know (a "formal" usage). Anyone who hasn't heard "all y'all" probably also hasn't heard "might could", and has no business talking about common usage in Southeastern US.

[Learjeff]

Originally Posted by redtail23

OK, 99.999% of Southerners only use "y'all" as a plural.

Evidently there are a few here and there that 1) don't follow the standard usage, 2) have started using the plural as a formalizer like the Romance languages do (note that all of the examples given were between relative strangers), 3) have been misunderstood (see below) or 4) they're transplants that got confused and just use it incorrectly.
singular.

SInce you're quoting numbers, please cite your source.

My experience differs dramatically from yours. I live in Durham, NC, and often hear the singular usage mentioned above, and most often in exactly that situation: a server or salesperson talking to a customer. Thus my inference that it's used as a formal form. Maybe that's not how it is where you live.

[Learjeff]

Originally Posted by DSYoungEsq

I live in South Carolina, right below Charlotte, NC.

You live underground?? Cool!

[Learjeff]

Originally Posted by aldiboronti

The "wrong" usage by Quakers (using thee for the nominative rather than thou) dates back to at least as far as the mid-19th century. I remember reading an article on this in an old Notes & Queries from the 1850s or 60s in which it was commented on. Before seeing that I used to think it was Hollywood getting it wrong (in films like Friendly Persuasion, etc)

I noticed that Mark Twain clearly captures that usage in dialog (using "thee" as subject as well as object, or any case at all). IIRC, he even uses "thee's" as the possessive. Whether that's an accurate reflection of 1850's usage, or amplification for humorous puporses, is left to the reader as an exercise.

This appears in his first novel, "The Guilded Age," among others.

[Charmbrights]

As to formal and informal forms of address in the Queen's English (as opposed to tother countries' versions), I was brought up in an area where thou and thee were in common use (and still can sometimes be heard today). The rule for deciding whether one can use the informal was very clear:

Thou thees them as thous thee.

Incidentally does anyone know of any other pronoun with a verb form?

[Chronos]

One thing I've wondered, does a redneck Quaker address a group of people as "Th'all"?

[John W. Kennedy]

Originally Posted by Charmbrights

As to formal and informal forms of address in the Queen's English (as opposed to tother countries' versions), I was brought up in an area where thou and thee were in common use (and still can sometimes be heard today). The rule for deciding whether one can use the informal was very clear:

Thou thees them as thous thee.

Incidentally does anyone know of any other pronoun with a verb form?

I suppose any pronoun could be substituted, though only “we” would be likely to appear in an actual conversation.

I take it you’re from the North, perhaps Yorkshire? I remember Dorothy L. Sayers giving, “Th’art fagged, lad,” as something that might actually be heard in her day, and “Thou art brassed-off, methinks,” as a Horrid Example of Getting It Wrong.

[Charmbrights]

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

... I take it you’re from the North, perhaps Yorkshire? ...

Not nowadays, but as a child I was brought up in Derbyshire.

[Learjeff]

Originally Posted by Chronos

One thing I've wondered, does a redneck Quaker address a group of people as "Th'all"?

Hah!

[RoniaBorkason]

Originally Posted by Charmbrights

Incidentally does anyone know of any other pronoun with a verb form?

The Spanish informal "tu" - "tutear", to address someone in the informal (with connotations of sassing them)

(Aghast grannie: "me tuteo!"/"she you-ed me!")

[Giles]

Originally Posted by RoniaBorkason

The Spanish informal "tu" - "tutear", to address someone in the informal (with connotations of sassing them)

(Aghast grannie: "me tuteo!"/"she you-ed me!")

There are similar verbs in French (tutoyer) and German (duzen). However, they don't have the same form as the pronouns (tu/toi and du/dich, respectively), because they need their languages' verb endings (-er and -en, respectively). English doesn't limit the infinitive form of verbs in that way, so you can just use the straight "thee" or "thou" as a verb.

[Frylock]

2009 Language Log article on the singular ya'll issue.

TLDR: It appears the best evidence is that ya'll can be used in the singular at least in Oklahoma--but the evidence isn't very decisive because it's based on self-report.

[Learjeff]

Here's a comment from that article that explains my observations:

I'm from North Carolina and I only realized I used singular y'all a few years ago when I was working at a Starbucks and noticed that I'd ask both groups and individual customers something along the lines of "What can we do for y'all today?" So I likely fell into the usage as part of a rhythm or due to frequency of usage of canned phrases. I don't know if I used it before working at Starbucks and because I've been living up in DC for almost 2 years now, and as I don't address people with questions like that with any sort of regularity, I don't know if I still actively use singular y'all.

I am interested in the hypothesis that it's an unconscious badge of distinction, though. I'm from Durham, and that area has a very high Yankee influx population (due to the universities and the Research Triangle), so it could have been a result of my wanting to emphasize my nativeness.

But that doesn't explain the popularity of "all y'all", which is generally used when someone is talking to one person but wants to explicitly include everyone.

As a Yankee living in NC, I use "y'all" as a plural, partly because it's useful, and partly because it's fun. No doubt I sound like a Damn Yankee trying to sound like I live here (only 12 years now.)