Second Person Pronoun

In Scottish it is "yous".

"' herd yous goat cha$ed fae Popeye, las'night."

I believe the dictionary lists this as slang, but dictionary.com doesn't seem to like it, preferring 'nous' instead.

you <=> thou, but the distinction was less sing-plur than low-high (or vice versa) and "thou" eventually went out of fashion when it became a political hot potato round the Civil War (some old dissenter sects still use "thee" and "thou"). It's like the Quaker thing with hats (you only uncover in the presence of God, not your so-called "social superiors"). The radical egalitarian element of the protestant wing refused to make a distinction who they said "thou" to: they were equally respectful (or disrespectful, I forget) of everyone.

This is kind of guesswork btw. But I am quite pleased with it.

roughly speaking, it's the historical angle thang.

take french [not go study it for 3 yrs, just allow me to use it as an example] --

1st person: je / nous
2nd person: toi / vous
3rd person: il/elle / ils/elles

'vous' can denote plural or singular 'you' [the latter in a formal sense]. 400-odd yrs ago the english language had words like thee, thou, thine. these were the 'familiar' forms of you/your/yours - like the french 'toi'. for whatever reason, these were superseded by the formal/collective form 'you'. for greater efficiency or whatever. i guess the amount of confusion between 'you' singular vs plural is much less than say, i vs we, or him vs them.

ok but can it still be a bit about hats?

2nd person: tu/vous as I learned it. Although I just looked up toi my dictionary, and it says: toi: pron pers you. Does French perhaps have two ways to say 2nd person singular?

Old English distinguished between "thou (art)" and "you (are)." "Thou" was second person singular and "you" was second person plural. Somewhere in the shuffle of history that crucial distinction was lost - probably through laziness, who knows?

if you don't mind sounding like a yokel you can use "y'all"

Second person Pronoun (singular) in Dutch: Jij/Je or U. The first being neutral/informal and the second being for polite situations. I always find it somewhat awkward or *sad* one can not really distinguish in English.

We learned Latin using "you" (tu) and "y'all" (vos) to make it easy for us poor little kids. Y'all it is.

I remember my aging ex nun latin teacher declining the word for name and saying "imagine a sign that says there are NOMEN in this club" and at the time (i was 13 or 14) this only meant one thing about her chosen way of life. I still find it amusing though not as much admittedly.

we've heard that story before, ronan, i have deja vu!

Somewhere in the shuffle of history that crucial distinction [between thou and you] was lost - probably through laziness, who knows?

As English nobility became more cosmopolitan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they took their cue from the many continental languages. Over time the form "thou" was considered familiar and therefore impolite in many situations. This limited its use among the upper classes, then it crept into the middle classes and into the mainstream (through grammar school prejudice), until it nearly vanished.

The Quakers preserved it among themselves as a more democratic and equalizing useage (as in 'we're all Friends here, you know - er, thou knowest'). But the mainstream didn't go along and "thou" forms finally disappeared.

If "you all" = "y'all," then "we all" should = "w'all".

I still own this thread with 'yous' ;)

Laughing at Ronan with the NOMEN

Reminds me how I used to laugh like a drain when the declension got to NOMINIBUS!!!

But the first person equivalent to "you all"/"y'all" would be "me all" or "m'all"

'Although I just looked up toi my dictionary, and it says: toi: pron pers you. Does French perhaps have two ways to say 2nd person singular?

-- lyra in seattle'

Isn't 'tu' the nominative and 'toi' the accusative? Compare 'I' and 'me.'

CJ - yes, it all comes back to me. Plus there was a guy in my class who was a Who fan and ergo made great play of Tarquinius Superbus, relating him to some popular ditty with the line 'super magic bus' in't.

In Cork the second person plural seems to be 'ye', which I like.

TAKING SIDES: VOSOTROS vs. USTEDES

Curtis is correct!

I woke up this morning think I shoudl start this thread, only to find that a) it had already been started b) I'd already read it (because I remember reading it off Have the Guts to Ask! ) c) I'd already considered starting it after reading it.

Anyway, I can confirm that people from Cork and generally Down The Country say "ye", and prolonged exposure to them means that it's probably my favourite SPP(P). Though I'd probably feel silly saying it to someone English. After that it's you, yiz, you-all (another country thing) and y'all. I'd like to use y'all, but it sounds contrived (to me. I'm sure me saying any of these sounds contrived to others).