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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!mangoe
From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: Second Person Plural
Message-ID: <1681@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 22:39:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1681
Posted: Wed Sep 25 22:39:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 05:52:59 EDT
References: <714@terak.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 24
Xref: watmath net.singles:9359 net.nlang:3606

In article <714@terak.UUCP> suze@terak.UUCP (Suzanne Barnett) writes:

>> >> Actually English *does* have a second person plural: it's "you."

>> >    Historically, yes. But presently, "you" functions primarily as
>> >2nd person singular.

>As any good southerner knows, the plural of "you" is "ya'll"
>(contraction of "you all").

At at RenFair whose name I will tactfully omit, the "king" replied to a GSTK
with

    "And God save Thee'all."

which prompted one of my compatriots to comment that the "king" was
obviously from Southern England.

Seriously, English, exhibiting its typical pronoun obnoxia, has a second
person pronoun.  Not plural.  Not singular.  Just second person.  Just as it
has a non-person, a female, and a male/neuter singular pronoun.  Perverse.
English.

Charley Wingate


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