Knowing that "you" is the formal and "thou" is the informal is hard to grasp. I can't imagine saying "f--- thou, buddy!"
Sure, of course that's weird. You'd say "thou ought know thyself".
Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
311–320 of 441 posts
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is speaking to someone formally considered ending up in an inferior position in all cultures? In Persian if someone expects to be spoken with formally, they have to speak formally themselves. So when you speak formally you're kinda bringing both parties up. You can even flirt by speaking formally.
In Spanish asymmetric conversations have always been a thing, e.g. student-teacher, patient-doctor or younger-older conversations where the former side uses V and the latter T. The V is gradually being dropped in Spain and in the last few decades the process seems to have accelerated, though, definitely it seems faster than in French (although I don't know that much about French). I don't think my 4-year-old son will…
> The V is gradually being dropped in Spain and in the last few decades the process seems to have accelerated
I own a Spanish textbook printed (in English) in 1958 that says about «usted»: ‘It is the universal respectful address of society, and the only one the foreigner is ever likely to employ or hear addressed to him, unless he marries a native or forms intimate friendships.’ How times have changed!
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compare English with Esperanto, which, in spite of being much easier to learn than English, still hasn't become anywhere near as widespread (at least in terms of number of speakers). Ironically the one biggest thing which presents an ideological advantage for Esperanto is that it's native to no nation, so all the people who speak it are closer to being equals in that regard; yet it is the imperialism and a large numb…
English is neither morally superior nor morally inferior to Esperanto.
In general? No, of course not; I feel that would be an absurd claim to make.
But as an international language? I think having everyone learn something that is comparatively easy to learn is certainly more fair than having most people learn something that is comparatively hard to learn and understood by others from the get-go, thereby giving the latter an unfair advantage. And I feel that being more fair in this regard is indeed morally superior.
(Then again, that might just boil down to one's own idea of morality. But I feel like this one shouldn't be all too uncommon, and the claim is entirely reasonable in its terms.)
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
America was an economic backwater until the 1900s. France was, and to a greatly diminished extent still is, a global power. French has T-V distinction. French has arbitrary noun gendering. The noun gendering alone makes it significantly easier to embarrass yourself speaking French than English.
> America was an economic backwater until the 1900s. That seems like a stretch. My understanding is that plantation cash crops grown in the South like Cotton were a major export in the early-mid 19th Century. And then of course Standard Oil was incorporated in 1870. Maybe the effect of American industrialization didn't have a big effect internationally until the ~1890s and onward, but I'd hardly say the USA was a bac…
> Maybe the effect of American industrialization didn't have a big effect internationally until the ~1890s and onward, but I'd hardly say the USA was a backwater throughout the industrial revolution.
The US had a huge effect on industrialized Europe before that. The British textile revolution would never have happened if the US hadn't supplied a large chunk of the cotton (from plantations in the South) and if the British hadn't physically destroyed the the-dominant textile industry in India.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#315What a lovely Christmas present. I did not think I would ever write anything that ended up on the top of HN.
Great question.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Spanish asymmetric conversations have always been a thing, e.g. student-teacher, patient-doctor or younger-older conversations where the former side uses V and the latter T. The V is gradually being dropped in Spain and in the last few decades the process seems to have accelerated, though, definitely it seems faster than in French (although I don't know that much about French). I don't think my 4-year-old son will…
Spanish has lots of funky history in its second person pronouns that vary regionally. After Argentina's recent election I've been consuming lots of content from there, and it sometimes surprises me how frequently they use vos in things that would seem to call for politeness. Vos itself was formal address in Spain in the time of Cervantes IIRC, it is also the origin of vuestro merced ( usted )
> After Argentina's recent election I've been consuming lots of content from there, and it sometimes surprises me how frequently they use vos in things that would seem to call for politeness. Vos itself was formal address in Spain in the time of Cervantes IIRC, it is also the origin of vuestro merced (usted)
vos is not really formal in Argentinian Spanish, although it does share an etymologocal root with vuestro merced/Usted.
Argentinian Spanish is itself pretty different from other Latin American dialects, but in general vos is used interchangeably with tú, to the point where the accusative form of "vos" is also te - ie, "Vos te levantás" instead of "tú te levantas" (note the location of the accents in each example).
The connotations of formality (or lack thereof) are subtle and vary much more widely than you might imagine - far more than the comment limit on HN would permit - but by and large it's better to think of vos as the informal pronoun, and the only question is whether it's used alongside tú, in place of it, or in some weird combination that has its own subtle connotations.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#317Thee and Thou are still used in Northern England (Yorkshire and Lancashire). Although probably only by older people and often spoken as Thi and Tha.
I feel like this must be fading because I lived in North Yorkshire for almost 5 years and never heard a thee/thou used. On the other hand, English dialects are hyper localized so there might be villages where it is normal.
I definitely heard it more from my Grandfather, but I still hear it here in South Yorkshire. It seems to be most often used in common phrases, such as "What's tha want for tha tea?" or "What's tha doing?" (tha = thou/thy), or used for emphasis ("I'll tell thee what"), rather than as a general alternative though.
> English dialects are hyper localized
On a vaguely related note, has anyone else (particularly in Yorkshire) use "seef"/"seefing" to mean "see if"/"seeing if" (as in "I was seefing/seeing if it was in the car")? I hear it all the time from my immediate family, but I've never been able to find it referenced beyond that.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compare English with Esperanto, which, in spite of being much easier to learn than English, still hasn't become anywhere near as widespread (at least in terms of number of speakers). Ironically the one biggest thing which presents an ideological advantage for Esperanto is that it's native to no nation, so all the people who speak it are closer to being equals in that regard; yet it is the imperialism and a large numb…
Esperanto may not be native to any nation, but as far as I'm aware, it's heavily influenced by Latin and various European languages. Not saying that this is it's main problem, and other constructed languages like Lojban are probably even less relevant despite trying to be more "culturally neutral".
Yes, you are entirely correct. Making a language that’s fully ‘culturally neutral’ is likely impossible, but even so, Esperanto could have done much better in this regard (and as far as I know, some other constructed languages do much better in this regard).
Even then, it's a very big jump from ‘people in some countries already know this and don’t need to learn at all’ to ‘people in some countries will have an easier time learning since they’ll recognise a lot of the words’; making this jump would already be a great improvement upon the status quo. Out of the languages which make the jump, Esperanto is by far the most widely spoken and otherwise used in practice.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#319What a lovely Christmas present. I did not think I would ever write anything that ended up on the top of HN.
I'm the author of the top answer, and I believe that this is the top-voted thing that I ever posted on any StackExchange site. It was a lovely surprise to see it here today, and I hope that everyone else enjoyed reading it. Merry Christmas!
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
#320As someone coming from a culture with T-V distinction [1], I always wished we dropped one of the branches like English did in the past. The informal T vs formal V causes confusion in conversation with semi-strangers. Eg. At work you never really know which way to speak to someone at a watercooler. If you choose the informal T you make them your equal. Ehich might be perceived as insulting to them, since they might wa…
Funny enough, i never noticed that english feature because PT-BR is similar, we only use Voce instead of Tu.