YOU: A SHORT HISTORY
The pronoun's winding way to second-person dominance
THE ECONOMIST
Language Johnson
January 17, 2013
TIME magazine once made its Person of the Year "You", adorning that week's issue with a reflective metallic cover. Readers like to read about how important they are. But this post is not about you. Sorry if you were misled by the headline. It's about you, the pronoun.
In yesterday's installment, about singular they, I said that they could simply be considered both singular and plural. In other words, "All parents love their children" and "Every parent loves their children" would both be correct. Anticipating exploding heads at this seeming illogic ("but they is plural!") I pointed out that you is also both singular and plural. How did that come to be? By a process of drift (including social change), which over a long time made innovative usage of you unremarkable and standard.
First of all, in Old English, you was originally not even a subject pronoun. It (in many different pronunciations and spellings) was the objective form of ye, the second-person plural pronoun. In other words, it could be a direct object, indirect object or the object of a preposition, but not a subject. From one 15th-century citation in the Oxford English dictionary: "I in you, and ye in me." It could also be used reflexively, as in "get you home" (ie, "get yourselves home".)
You then crept into subject position. The first OED citations come from the 14th century, and are flagged as potential copying errors. By the 15th century, the usage was clear: you was being used alongside ye. Both appear in the King James Bible, 1611:
The informal singular was still thou, in those centuries in which English maintained the informal/formal pronoun distintion that many modern European languages still have: tu-vous, du-Sie, tú-usted, etc. But gradually social change sealed you's triumph. Using a plural to address a single person was once reserved for the very highborn, but made its way down the social ladder until any social superior was to be addressed with you. It didn't stop there, though, as vous and Sie did. Instead, having once crowded out ye, you now edged out thou in the early modern period.
To recap: you began as as objective, then became usable in subject position too. Then it went from plural only to singular too. Then it went from formal use to informal use too. Ye, thou and thee (the objective form of thou) were all left behind in the history books. Quite the conquering pronoun. Good job, you.
Adapted from: https://www.economist.com/johnson/2013/01/17/you-a-short-history. Accessed on November 20, 2021. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. All rights reserved.
January 17, 2013
TIME magazine once made its Person of the Year "You", adorning that week's issue with a reflective metallic cover. Readers like to read about how important they are. But this post is not about you. Sorry if you were misled by the headline. It's about you, the pronoun.
In yesterday's installment, about singular they, I said that they could simply be considered both singular and plural. In other words, "All parents love their children" and "Every parent loves their children" would both be correct. Anticipating exploding heads at this seeming illogic ("but they is plural!") I pointed out that you is also both singular and plural. How did that come to be? By a process of drift (including social change), which over a long time made innovative usage of you unremarkable and standard.
First of all, in Old English, you was originally not even a subject pronoun. It (in many different pronunciations and spellings) was the objective form of ye, the second-person plural pronoun. In other words, it could be a direct object, indirect object or the object of a preposition, but not a subject. From one 15th-century citation in the Oxford English dictionary: "I in you, and ye in me." It could also be used reflexively, as in "get you home" (ie, "get yourselves home".)
You then crept into subject position. The first OED citations come from the 14th century, and are flagged as potential copying errors. By the 15th century, the usage was clear: you was being used alongside ye. Both appear in the King James Bible, 1611:
- And the Serpent said vnto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. (Genesis 3:4)
- And Naomi said, Turne againe, my daughters: why will you goe with mee? (Ruth 1:11)
The informal singular was still thou, in those centuries in which English maintained the informal/formal pronoun distintion that many modern European languages still have: tu-vous, du-Sie, tú-usted, etc. But gradually social change sealed you's triumph. Using a plural to address a single person was once reserved for the very highborn, but made its way down the social ladder until any social superior was to be addressed with you. It didn't stop there, though, as vous and Sie did. Instead, having once crowded out ye, you now edged out thou in the early modern period.
To recap: you began as as objective, then became usable in subject position too. Then it went from plural only to singular too. Then it went from formal use to informal use too. Ye, thou and thee (the objective form of thou) were all left behind in the history books. Quite the conquering pronoun. Good job, you.
Adapted from: https://www.economist.com/johnson/2013/01/17/you-a-short-history. Accessed on November 20, 2021. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment