Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#301

Post by 8372049 » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:45 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #281

8372049 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not universally true. In my country, German was the widely accepted and taught second language until WW2. Since then it's been English.

It would help if we knew which country. Was this due to (1) pre-WW2 German language mostly useful for trade with Germany, or (2) a significant minority of ethnic Germans, who probably returned to Germany (E/W) after WW2? My guess: #2.

Norway. Just overall friendlier standing with Germany than the UK pre-WW2 I think.

No significant minority of ethnic Germans, and I think trade with Germany and the UK was roughly comparable.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#302

Post by samvoar » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:46 AM UTC

delduca wrote: post #34

The same happened with Portuguese in Brazil, 'Vós Mercês', which is formal, is used throughout the country as (simplified) 'você'. And the informal form, 'tu', is rarely used (only in the South).

>tu', is rarely used (only in the South)

even in places and situations where 'tu' is used it's mostly still conjugated as if it were second person singular.

'EU BEM QUE TE AVISEI - TU EMPINOU ELE PEI'

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#303

Post by 8372049 » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:47 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #292

8372049 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason German(y) was widely unpopular after WW2 wasn't primarily because they lost. ETA: They lost WW1 too, but German remained our #1 foreign language.

OTOH, the reason those feelings were free to be expressed...

Yeah, we would all be speaking German now if they had won. But to put it another way, German remained the second language after they lost WW1.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#304

Post by 8372049 » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:54 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #273

8372049 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not universally true. In my country, German was the widely accepted and taught second language until WW2. Since then it's been English.

How is that not essentially the same point? The second language was determined by international politics, not linguistic merit.

Depends on your level of abstraction, I guess. GP stated "We all speak English because at one point the English practically owned the entire planet."

Which in our case is false. We stopped learning German as a second language because of the Nazi aggression and atrocities during WW2, and started learning English as a second language due to their aid and closer relations during the war.

But yes, it's obviously not because of any linguistic merit.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#305

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:56 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #14

The page also gets into the plural form being used for the singular over time (as is increasingly the case with English, at least in the US, when you want to avoid specifying a masculine or feminine third-person singular).

[deleted]

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#306

Post by skissane » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:57 AM UTC

nitwit005 wrote: post #295

softfalcon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I feel like people forget about that whole British Imperialism thing too easily. We all speak English because at one point the English practically owned the entire planet.

It is a bit more complex than that. My father (American) learned German because his mother considered it "the language of science". That attitude is mostly gone.

> It is a bit more complex than that. My father (American) learned German because his mother considered it "the language of science". That attitude is mostly gone.

When my dad did his chemistry degrees (a bachelors and a masters by research) in the late 1960s / early 1970s (Australia), they made him do a unit on how to read German, because that is the language of a lot of the older chemistry literature. I don’t think they care anywhere near as much about German in chemistry nowadays, although (from what I understand) learning to read German is still an expectation for some humanities PhDs (such as Egyptology)

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#307

Post by alluro2 » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 3:59 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #201

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words change roles, and shit is a very good contemporary example. Among my children's generation (mid-20s to mid-30s) it is now just as much as stand-in for "stuff" as it is an expression of anger or insult. "Where am I going to put all this shit?" does still carry a hint of a negative tone (directed towards the stuff), but barely any.

ismo explains shit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo

Ismo is the shit :)

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#308

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 4:05 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #265

amadeuspagel wrote: post #225

> This explains a peculiarity of traditional Quaker speech, which one often hears in films set in the early Americas. The Quakers opposed making any distinctions of rank, so they insisted on addressing everyone as thou, not as you. The irony is that today we perceive thou to be archaic and formal, while the original intent is to be more informal. In german, the distinction between formal and informal address is disap…

I wonder if it in part has to do with English's overall status as a "second class" or even "lower class" language even in its own native land during the years after the Norman invasion. Up until a certain point the aristocracy spoke mostly Norman French, and even after they switched to English they did so with a form heavily filled with French loans and written with French-derived orthography. What I mean to say is,…

[deleted]

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#309

Post by adamkochanowicz » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 4:14 AM UTC

Knowing that "you" is the formal and "thou" is the informal is hard to grasp. I can't imagine saying "f--- thou, buddy!"

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#310

Post by ramses0 » Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 4:17 AM UTC

devilbunny wrote: post #279

calvinmorrison wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up in the south it was all yes sir no sir yes ma'am no ma'am

And in many ways still is, especially for kids, but Southern English also has mechanisms for expressing familiarity and respect at the same time - it was in no way unusual for us to call friends' parents by their first name, provided we prefixed it with "Mr/Miss" (always Miss, for some reason, even if an obviously married woman).

It's considered "polite" to imply that the woman in question is obviously still an unmarried hottie, which is why you always "err on the side of Miss", rather than "mistake on the side of Mrs."