this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The "you" is plural btw. "You" in english was plural and "Thou" was singular. Idk why "Thou" disappeared. Just another English thing, I guess.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In French (and probably many other languages) first person plural is more polite. People in England started defaulting to "you" as it was a safer bet socially, and "thou" fell out of use.

English also used thorn (þ) before for "th" but printing presses didn't, and substituted "y", which I suspect contributed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Wikipedia confirms, in particular on this page on the expression ye olde.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, when thou disappeared you took it's place.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Interestingly the you / thou distinction existed because of French / Latin influence (see the T-V distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction). Thou was generally for addressing intimate / inferiors. English just drifted to using the more formal “you” across time and dropped the thou.