On Oct 27, 2005, at 3:00 AM, Alexandra in MA wrote:
 
>In Old English, there was a distinction between "ye" (first person
>singular pronoun), and "thou" (first person plural pronoun.) "Thou"
>was essentially "Yall", or a way to address God, who is for some
>reason, often addressed in the plural.  (I'm not getting into the
>religious implications of a plural God.  It's complicated.)
 
Not quite, but the usage has made a few twists over time.
 
"Thou" was the familiar and singular form, and "you" was the plural form.
That's like the French tu/Vous or the German du/ Sie.  And like those two
languages, the plural was also used in formal situations.  (In German you
only say 'du' to a family member or close friend; everyone else is 'Sie'.
Same in French.)
 
Then come the wierdities of English and of the Protestant reformation.
God in Protestant theology is an intimate; your father and your best
friend.  So the familiar form 'thou' was used in the King James Bible
when speaking to God.  It's actually pretty interesting to see where
the familiar is used and where the formal is used.
 
Meanwhile, over the next hundred or so years, the familiar form dropped
out of favor.  (Except among a few groups like the Quakers, who insisted
on using the familiar form for everyone, since we are all children of God
and therefore siblings.  But that's another story.)
 
In "thou twice-damn'ed polecat!" , 'thou' is appropriate because Ping (in
Shakespeare's estimation) is not acting worthy of a respectful title.  To
address him otherwise would be ludicrous.  (A German friend of mine tells
me that he once heard a tourist yelling at his suitcase, which had fallen
on him in the train, and it was doubly funny because he was using the
formal "Sie".)
 
Thou is the subjective case (Thou see'st me), and thee is the objective
case (I see thee).
 
Where does 'ye' come into this?  'Ye' is the vocative case of 'you'
(brush off your latin text for that one; suffice it to say that "Ye"
really needs an "Oh" in front of it, as in "Oh ye of little faith".
 
But it's handy to have a 2nd person plural pronoun, and 'you' no longer
works.  It's too general-purpose.  So in a number of dialects, pronouns
have arisen to fit the bill.  Y'all is one form; so is 'youse' and 'youse
guys'.  (BTW, 'youse' is classical Brooklynese, and I first heard 'youse
guys' in East Saint Louis, Illinois.)
 
Once you have two pronouns -- you (singular) and y'all (plural), it's
natural in an Indoeuropean language to use the plural as a formal form --
hence using 'y'all' as a singular pronoun...... round and round.....
 
--Claire
(who studied this stuff in college and whose grandfather still used
'thee')
[Posted in FML issue 5046]