You, sir, are expecting too much from your audience.
It's interesting in that the assumption of formality in 'you, sir,' suggests the speaker is about to be rather discourteous in the following clause.
Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
151–160 of 200 posts
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#152Greetings from a speaker of a linguistic oddity that doesn't have a universal form of the word "you". My native language -- Sinhalese -- has two forms: written and spoken. The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not. You literally cannot address someone without knowing their status/relationship…
American English also has some written/spoken differences. I.e. telling a child to finish eating we say "Did ya eat your breakfast?" but write "Did you eat your breakfast".
Hey maybe English speakers still use the archaic 'ye' - in phrases like 'didya' and 'doya'?
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#153This relates well to one of the fascinating things I realized while learning German: the fact that so many English and German words and sounds have phonetic connections, coming from their common Germanic ancestry. For example, the letter "d" in German corresponding to "th" in English: die/der/das -> the drei -> three Donner -> thunder Ding -> thing daher -> therefore and, most relevant to this discussion: du -> thou…
Any Danish speakers here? It should be even closer to English as that's where the Angles and Saxons are from.
Yes, Danish seems to be in between German and English, except for the first example.
die/der/das -> [see below] -> the
drei -> tre -> three
Donner -> torden -> thunder
Ding -> ting -> thing
daher -> derfor -> therefore
du -> du -> thou
ein Haus -> et hus -> a house
das Haus -> huset -> the house
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#154We're very happy with y'all here in Texas.
It confused me when I asked a native Texan something about what I should do next and she responded with "y'all could [foo]". But there's only one of me? I suppose that technically I am the 'all' of the 'you' that is being addressed?
Native Texan here. I've never really heard it being used as a form of "you" and that just seems silly to me. "Y'all" is definitely plural.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
In some regional vernaculars, "y'all" is singular and "all y'all" is plural.
Interesting. Here in North Carolina, "y'all" is generally plural, whereas "all y'all" is also plural but more emphatic, as in "I really do mean every last one of you", or sometimes simply to indicate a stronger emotional content, especially when angry.
South Carolinian here that spent a lot of time in Raleigh & Charlotte and is now living in Austin. "y'all" can be both singular and plural, depending on the context. "All y'all" applies to larger groups (sometimes including people that aren't present), as well as with additional emphasis.
"All y'all come by for supper" meaning you and your close family. And maybe even some other people as well, if there's room at the table for them.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that it's highly likely the subset of Hacker News that has studied comparitive-historical linguistics is small, and that the usage of field-specific jargon is exclusionary and obfuscatory. I studied rhetoric and technical communication for some time, and know quite well the usefulness of field-specific terminology for initiated readers. This, however, is not a comparitive-historical linguistics symposium…
In this case acronym is not being used jargonistically, it's being used to avoid writing out "Proto-Indo-European language" and perhaps more importantly acts as a useful indicator that this is not a novel concept in the field. It is seen frequently and unambiguously in any discussion about linguistics. I recommend you avoid throwing around accusations of laziness: if you're genuinely not aware that PIE stands for Pro…
(I hadn't intended to make this such a conversation, apologies to tikwidd for building a mountain...)
I've assistant edited academic journals and spent years as a copywriter/editor at a consulting firm that worked in many specialized industries. That accusation was leveled with purpose and from experience.
This is not only about the acronym above, though PIE does have many meanings[1]. That an acronym has a specific meaning to a specific group is why it is jargon. That it is "not a novel concept in the field" further reinforces that and is justification for writing it out, given the audience. It's really that simple.
The primary effect of acronyms on a non-indoctrinated audience is to reduce the writing's accessibility.
Simply, this is not a linguistics conference nor journal forum, and it is inappropriate to assume the folks here will know field specific acronyms.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say barriers to participation, I say anti-spam measures. Have you really never used any StackExchange site, though? Once you've used one, you get 100 free rep when signing up on any other StackExchange site, which is enough to perform all the basic actions (posting, commenting, voting, etc).
I have an account on StackOverflow and I linked it to my new english.stackexchange.com account, but I didn't get any free rep.
I'm in the same situation as you, except I got my 100 points. Perhaps you should report this on one of the meta sites.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#158Greetings from a speaker of a linguistic oddity that doesn't have a universal form of the word "you". My native language -- Sinhalese -- has two forms: written and spoken. The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not. You literally cannot address someone without knowing their status/relationship…
> [...] but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less [...] No need to deprecate your mother-tongue. I bet there's plenty of grammar, it's just different from the written form. (I see a similar inferiority complex with speakers of Singlish here in Singapore. It's a great language, if you ask me.)
It is in fact a great language. For one thing, our alphabet is fully phonetic. And it's even arranged in a logical grid: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sinhala.htm
It's also a great language to tell jokes in. We have a lot of delivery-based humor that gets completely lost if only the meaning is translated (which is often the case when the destination language is English).
Some of our original deficiencies: we didn't have punctuation or even spaces before they were introduced by European colonists (Portuguese, Dutch and British, in that order). So our ancient writings LOOKEDKINDOFLIKETHISANDWENTONFORPARAGRAPHS.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#159Greetings from a speaker of a linguistic oddity that doesn't have a universal form of the word "you". My native language -- Sinhalese -- has two forms: written and spoken. The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not. You literally cannot address someone without knowing their status/relationship…
That's extremely interesting! So people speak in the third person ("did mother want me to get mother's groceries"), or is this a second person still?
If you're addressing mother, then it is second person. This is exactly how I would say this to my mother (translated to English of course). Some of the kids in the newer generations use the more familiar "oya".
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#160Greetings from a speaker of a linguistic oddity that doesn't have a universal form of the word "you". My native language -- Sinhalese -- has two forms: written and spoken. The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not. You literally cannot address someone without knowing their status/relationship…
American English also has some written/spoken differences. I.e. telling a child to finish eating we say "Did ya eat your breakfast?" but write "Did you eat your breakfast". Hey maybe English speakers still use the archaic 'ye' - in phrases like 'didya' and 'doya'?
Isn't that just a pronunciation difference?