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Episode 54: Pronoun Pros and Cons

The History of English Podcast

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You and Your Overtook the Singular Forms

By the time of shakespeare, we had distinct singular forms, thou, thee, thy and thine. But as we all know, you and your eventually overtook the singular forms. Why did that happen? Well, the answer has to do with french. When the normans arrived in ten 66, they brought their french versions of those pronouns which were the singular tu and the plural vou. And throughout the middle english period, when french influence was at its greatest, it became commonplace to use the plural u as a means of formal address. So i might refer to my close friend as thou or thee, but i would refer to a stranger or superior as you, the plural form.

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