Usage
In standard English, you is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural, (i.e. you are, in common with we are and they are). This was not always so. Early Modern English distinguished between the plural ye and the singular thou. As in many other European languages, English at the time had a T-V distinction, which made the plural forms more respectful and deferential; they were used to address strangers and social superiors. This distinction ultimately led to familiar thou becoming obsolete in modern English, although it persists in some rural English dialects. Because thou is now seen primarily in literary sources such as the King James Bible (often directed to God, who is traditionally addressed in the familiar) or Shakespeare (often in dramatic dialogs, e.g. "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"), it is now widely perceived ahistorically as more formal, rather than familiar.
Everyday speech among large sections of the population in Northern England commonly used and still uses dialect versions of thou, thee, thy, and thine. In South and West Yorkshire, for example, they are expressed as tha', thee, thi' and thine. In a South Yorkshire mining village in the late 1940s, among males only the village schoolteachers, doctor, parson and children in school exclusively used the 'you' form in the singular. Children who had grown up in households where 'tha' was the norm were forcibly reminded of the standard English at school and quickly became 'bilingual' using 'you' at school and in formal settings, and 'tha' at home and with friends. There was a distinct difference in usage between males and females, possibly due to women (who were almost exclusively homebound at that time) constantly hearing standard English on the BBC radio and at the cinema, and copying it as being more genteel. Younger women and girls used the 'you' form in most public speech, and the dialect form 'tha' rarely except perhaps in anger or exasperation. Very old women who had spent most of their lives unexposed to radio or cinema, used 'tha' in most circumstances except, sometimes, when dealing with officialdom. In the same village in the 2000s the dialect form is now mainly used in familiar interpersonal relationships, even among people who have received higher education.
Read more about this topic: You? Me? Us?
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)