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From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: How and why did English lose "thou"
Date: 20 May 2025 20:22:05 GMT
Organization: Stefan Ram
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Grimble Crumble <grimblecrumble870@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:
>In EmE, there were 2 distinct pronouns that translate to "you" in Modern
>English: thou, used in the singular; and ye, used in the plural/formal

  Alright, here's the rundown. Back in the day, English had
  two different words for "you": "thou" for one person you knew
  pretty well, and "ye" for a group or for someone you wanted to
  show some respect. Other languages do this too, like Spanish or
  French. So, why did "thou" just drop off the map?

  Basically, around the 15th to 17th centuries, people started
  getting more hung up on being polite and showing respect. Folks
  started using "you" for everyone, even just one person, because
  it sounded less in-your-face. "Thou" started to feel kind of
  rude or old-school, unless you were talking to family or to God.

  There was also this thing where people wanted to sound more like
  the upper crust, who were already using "you" instead of "thou."
  So, everyone else just followed along, and "thou" got left
  behind, mostly in rural spots or with groups like the Quakers.

  English has a habit of making things easier, grammar-wise,
  so just having "you" for everything caught on. Even though
  the King James Bible still used "thou" for God, regular
  people were already moving on.

  By the 1700s, "thou" was pretty much toast in standard English,
  except in some dialects and in church or poetry.

  But people still wanted a way to talk to more than one
  person at once, so you get stuff like "y'all" in the South,
  "you guys" all over the place, "youse" in New York and
  Australia, and "yinz" in Pittsburgh. These are just ways
  to fill in the gap that "thou" left behind.

  Other languages kept the whole formal/informal thing because
  it got baked into their grammar and culture. English just
  went the other way and stuck with one word for both.

  So, "thou" faded out because people wanted to be polite and
  sound like the upper class, and because English likes to
  keep things simple. But since folks still want to tell the
  difference between talking to one person or a bunch, new
  words keep popping up to do the job.