3 ms·
Perhaps worth mentioning that "you" is "ambiguous" in exactly the same way: it's grammatically and historically plural but can now refer to either a single pers
by bloak 5y ago
Perhaps worth mentioning that "you" is "ambiguous" in exactly the same way: it's grammatically and historically plural but can now refer to either a single person or a group.
French and German also use a grammatically/historically plural form for polite "you". But Italian seems to use a feminine third-person pronoun for that purpose ...
- Brian_K_White 5y agoYou is historically plural? I knew it could be applied to a group in certain cases, but only when referring the group as a single unit, really still singular. Or when speaking one-to-many, where each recipient is meant to hear you to refer to themselves, though the speaker spoke to a group. "you 12 come with me" is really still referring to a single unit to me, the group, not the individuals. IE, it conveys no more meaning than saying "you come with me" where the object might be either a person or a group equally. It's interesting, I don't think English has a way to distinguish "me singular" vs "me a member of a plural", other than by adding other words like "you all"