On Tue, 9 Sep 2003 22:01:37 -0400, Bill Cole wrote: > At 1:18 AM +0100 9/10/03, Bill Bedford imposed structure on a stream > of electrons, yielding:
>> >> In proper English you _is_ plural, thee is singular as in > > Hmm... Not exactly. For one thing, 'proper' has no really clear > meaning in English because we do not have one obvious entity akin to > the Academie Francaise trying to act as the language police. What you > refer to as 'proper' can also be referred to as 'archaic' or (by the > Quakers, who consciously used it until about 1950) 'plain.' That is 'proper' in the sense of where I was brung up and lived. I have known more than enough people who > > Present day English is one of very few Indo-European languages (and I > think the only Romance or Germanic language) without distinct formal > and familiar second person singular pronouns and at least one > distinct plural form. Du/Ihr/Sie in German. Tu/usted/vosotros/ustedes > in Spanish. Note that new world Spanish has pretty well lost > vosotros, bringing it closer to the French tu/vous model which > approximates Shakespearean or King James usage. > > For the period usually referred to as 'Early Modern English' the > usage norms were: > > Thou was second person, familiar, singular, nominative. > Thee was second person, familiar, singular, objective. > Ye was second person, singular formal or either sense plural, nominative. > You was second person, singular formal or either sense plural, objective. > > That of course only defines ~1400-~1700, since language is always a > moving target. There are many references to 'thou' being an insult in > some circumstances, as it was 'properly' used as almost an > endearment, and so was somewhat akin to addressing someone as 'dear' > or 'honey' would be today. Bill Bedford "Nothing is as important as model railways and even that isn't very important" -some wiseguy somewhere ############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
