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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!akgub!cylixd!charli
From: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Second Person Plural
Message-ID: <246@cylixd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 14:19:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: cylixd.246
Posted: Wed Sep  4 14:19:01 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Sep-85 04:13:41 EDT
References: <1634@qubix.UUCP> <845@abnji.UUCP>
Reply-To: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Organization: RCA Cylix Communications , Memphis, TN
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.singles:9127 net.nlang:3538
Summary: 

In article <845@abnji.UUCP> nyssa@abnji.UUCP (nyssa of traken) writes:
>>> Actually English *does* have a second person plural: it's "you."
>>
>>    Historically, yes. But presently, "you" functions primarily as
>>2nd person singular.
>
. . .
>
>What my arguement is that English has lost the second person
>"friendly" in "Thou", and that we always use the "formal" "you".
>
>-- 
>James C. Armstrong, Jnr.	{ihnp4,cbosgd,akgua}!abnji!nyssa

"You" is plural, not formal, and "thou" is singular, not familiar.
(Historically speaking, of course.)  I don't believe English ever had 
a "familiar" second person pronoun, just singular and plural.  (The
second person plural was often used to indicate respect, and may have
been considered idiomatically the second person singular formal.)  In
any event, the true second person singular gradually dropped out of
the language, leaving us with only one second person pronoun, used for
singular and plural, formal and familiar - a truly deplorable situation.

Except, of course, in the South, where "you" is the second person
singular, and "y'all" is second person plural :-) .