Yeah, its purpose is as a generalization of a group of people when referring to them in the 2nd person, but we don’t often talk to groups like that, to the point we have to specify when we are. We straight up have to add additional words to the sentence so people know we’re using it in its plural form, like saying you guys or you all (y’all).
It exists and we use it, but it’s a weird one and we never think of “you” as a plural word.
This is an awesome TIL. I’m tempted to take a stab at introducing “thou” into my daily verbiage. I am wholly aware I’d sound like a pretentious prat, but still… :-)
I do it when people complain like this about singular they. There’s a bunch of literature from the time of teachers complaining about singular you the same way these people complain about singular they. One of my favorite things to bring up and watch the smoke come out of their ears as they scramble to justify themselves.
What was “you” prior to being singular?
It was the formal “you” that could refer to one or more people. Kind of like “Sie” in German.
It was exclusively plural. So English pronouns were I, thou, they for singular and we, you, they for plural.
You as plural blows my mind. I’ve heard y’all and yous as slang….
Which is funny because you probably use it all the time, like in the original meme with singular they. Y’all is short for “you all,” after all.
I don’t think I ever use you as a plural ever, except maybe as a generalization.
I brought up y’all and yous because those are current slang terms that are close to the plural use of you.
Yeah, its purpose is as a generalization of a group of people when referring to them in the 2nd person, but we don’t often talk to groups like that, to the point we have to specify when we are. We straight up have to add additional words to the sentence so people know we’re using it in its plural form, like saying you guys or you all (y’all).
It exists and we use it, but it’s a weird one and we never think of “you” as a plural word.
This is an awesome TIL. I’m tempted to take a stab at introducing “thou” into my daily verbiage. I am wholly aware I’d sound like a pretentious prat, but still… :-)
I do it when people complain like this about singular they. There’s a bunch of literature from the time of teachers complaining about singular you the same way these people complain about singular they. One of my favorite things to bring up and watch the smoke come out of their ears as they scramble to justify themselves.