The New Plural Form in American English

The pronouns which english speakers use to refer to other persons have changed a lot. The first thing we notice is the various forms appear quite distinct. But that wasn't really the case at all when they were used in those seventeenth century works. Their original intent was to express intimacy and closeness. During the early 16 hundreds, those singular forms were still hanging on, but by the end of that century, they were basically gone. With the loss of those these and this, that left english with its universal ou what had once been a strictly plural pronoun was now used in all cases.