4 ms·

Alas, English used to have a perfectly fine 'thou', but then people abandoned it. And now they are re-inventing the same distinction. Now just wait until peop

by eru 1y ago

Alas, English used to have a perfectly fine 'thou', but then people abandoned it. And now they are re-inventing the same distinction. Now just wait until people address a single other person with youse, and then have to make up yous'all to address groups. (Evolution of language is fascinating. I'm just pretending to be upset.)

thfuran 1y ago
Ye is really the missing piece.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> English used to have a perfectly fine 'thou' Thou was second-person singular. Y’all is second-person plural.
- mkl 1y ago
  "You" used to be the second person plural, as a counterpart to "thou".
  - eru 1y ago
    Exactly. And y'all had to be invented, because 'you' became ambiguous.
anton-c 1y ago
A user named eru likes language, I'm not surprised! Big fan of linguistics and philology myself too. Edit: Also 'youse guys' is for groups I thought, but maybe you're keeping it to one word contractions, haha