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BS: Plural of you
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Subject: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 30 Oct 02 - 09:48 AM I've just returned from a meeting with the teacher of my grade 6 child, with a principal, another teacher, my wife, and my kid in attendance. It was a casual but necessary (by law I believe) meeting to discuss my kid's progress in a "gifted" program. Very little of any consequence happens at these annual meetings other than the signing of paperwork, and the acknowledgement that the silly computer programs designed to create the paperwork don't work very well. Now, anyone who has ever read my posts here will know I'm not the most articulate, grammatically correct individual, but fer Chrisakes...the teacher addressed my wife and I as "yous", not once, but twice! I wanted to ask her how to spell it. Casual or not, in a meeting of this nature I would expect a teacher to drop the yokel colloquialisms. I hate "yous" whenever I hear it, but for an educated 30something grade 6 teacher to use it with parents doesn't leave me with much faith in her other abilities. I hope I'm not being to judgemental. Am I the only one who is bothered by this stuff anymore? Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: jeffp Date: 30 Oct 02 - 09:51 AM No you're not. It drives me crazy, especially coming from someone who should know better. I would not consider this person to be fit to teach my child. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 30 Oct 02 - 09:52 AM They are re-making The Silence of the Lambs in Liverpool. It's going to be called... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shurrup Yous (ewes) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 30 Oct 02 - 09:57 AM So if I were a teacher and I used any dialectal variations, then I am not fit to be a teacher? I would find it very difficult to for example stop saying "us" instead of "me". I have never dropped these sorts of indicators of my dialect, even in interview situations (pretty formal occasions) and it has never stopped me getting a job (I have got the job in almost every interview I have been to). Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: MMario Date: 30 Oct 02 - 09:57 AM Thou |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bobert Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:01 AM Danged, if therez one thing that really gits by bobey Wes Ginny butt it's what's happening the purrfectly good English. Youz gotta be beside youzsefl there, Mooh. I mean the very thought of a gifted teacher uszin' youz when most folks know that you'allz is the only correct termonology. Whatz this world comin' to , anywayz? Nevermind. Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: JenEllen Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:08 AM The one that still gets me, and I do it often enough to cringe, is --- all y'all --- Bad grammar, and redundant to boot, take 'er out behind the barn.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: mack/misophist Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:09 AM Bagpuss: The job of teaching the lower grades is a little different from other jobs. Much of what is taught is by example, especially speech. Don't forget, standard English is still mandatory in standard jobs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Kim C Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:10 AM Y'all. Then there's "all y'all." In some parts of the Midwest its you'uns... pronounced more like "yoons." Isn't "yous" a Northern variation? If your child is in a gifted program, and doing very well, I wouldn't worry about it. :-) This teacher may well have other outstanding gifts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,GerMan Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:14 AM There's nothing wrong with "yous" - it's simply part of certain dialects. It would be very boring if we all spoke the same. Until the publication of the first bible in Tudor times there wasn't any standard English & therefore certain dialects were not seen as inferior to others. Ever since then though when the then dialect of the South East of England was used in the Bible anyone with anything different is seen as inferior/uneducated. It's jus' no right ah tells yer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Steve Parkes Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:19 AM I grew up convinced that teachers came from some mysterious other-wordly place where dialect, accent and (above all) slang are unknown; so when you speak to them, you have to speak in their terms, or have them demand "'gis'? I don't know that word!" or "'ain't? Who says 'ain't'?". You know this old chestnut? St Peter is changing the paper in the heavenly fax machine when there's a knock at the Pearly Gates. Not wanting to have to stop what he's doing, St P calls out, "Who's there?" "It is I." "Not another teacher!" Steve P.S. In answer to the question: yes, teachers ought to speak "properly" to parents, unless they are in more intimate circumstances than a PTA meeting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Declan Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:20 AM Yiz are all gettin' very upseh over nuthin' (as they say around here) usually followed by Yanowharrimeann ! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: smallpiper Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:21 AM Define standard English - would that be Queens English or American? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: IanC Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:24 AM Mooh If you're being correct in English, YOU is the plural, THOU being the singular. The plural was not only used to denote more than one, but also as a mark of respect. About 200 years ago, people decided to drop the singular and just use the plural (the French are in the process of doing the opposite at the moment - using TU instead of VOUS to their parents etc.). If you think that is not the same thing and didn't cause annoyance to some people, think again. It's one of the things Quakers really got it in the neck for ... using the singular to all, rather than just their social equals or inferiors. I'd be disinclined to complain ... just like the vowing on the hairs of your head, you won't change things one whit. ;-) Ian |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:32 AM I hate the idea that young kids must be taught that local dialects are *wrong* and standard English is correct. Surely they should be taught the use and validity of both forms. My brother is training to be a primary teacher and I'm sure that the obliteration of his dialect is not of primary concern. And neither should it be. I also think that many parents would relate better to a teacher who used dialectal forms - especially if they were local ones, rather than using standard English and sounding *posh*. Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Alice Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:41 AM Mooh, I agree with you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Alice Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:45 AM Children learn the local dialect long before they get to school. Students learn grammar in school and I would expect all the teachers to know how to speak using the correct grammar of whatever country they are in. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: 53 Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:47 AM yall. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:51 AM Yes the teachers should teach the grammar of standard English. And I'm sure the teacher concerned does know the *correct* grammar and teaches it to the kids. That doesn't mean, however, that they should never use the local dialect - inside the classroom or out of it. I mean I can just imagine in a meeting with parents that I might say something like "If y's (as I would say it) have any problems, then just give us a ring". Would that make me unfit to teach at primary level? Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Fibula Mattock Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:54 AM I am a firm supported of "yous" beacuse using "yous" is a Norn Iron thing, and yous aren't using it proper, so you's aren't! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Alice Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:54 AM My last post disappeared. We play alot with language on Mudcat, so most of us post messages with grammatical errors because this is an informal situation. Dialect is appropriate in some situations and not in others. The teacher should have known better. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: MMario Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:54 AM well - depends on whether we are talking second person familiar or second person formal. Thee was familiar, thou formal, You (which some people argue was actually pronounced 'thou' - but when printing became common the less educated read the thorn as a 'y' and it became 'you' ) anyway - depends on where you were - when it was - and sometimes who you were and who you were speaking to |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Teribus Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:56 AM If the subject being taught is standard english then it should be taught correctly. Seems a bit of a waste of time to do it any other way. Bagpuss under your system how would your brother spell, how would he speak in another part of the country with a different dialect, or does he have to copy that to make himself understood. At school (light years ago), the only dialect we ever had to get to grips with was when studying the works of Robert Burns. Our teacher did emphasise that he only ever used it in writing for entertainment, his letters were written in what was accepted as correct english of the day. To encourage the use of dialect in formal education only serves as a dumbing down exercise, that will ultimately be to the detriment of the pupil. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: HuwG Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:57 AM British Army usage:
Singular: YOU !!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Fibula Mattock Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:58 AM (Please ignore my atrocious misuse of an apostrophe in my above post. Now that IS unforgiveable.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:01 AM The lack of a single discrete word to indicate the plural of "you" is one of the larger curiosities of the English language. The "proper" plural for "you" is simply "you". One is supposed to be able to tell from the context whether the "you" is singular or plural. As this rarely happens in real life, we are forced to use non-standard terms to indicate plurality. Where I live, "you all" is the standard in polite conversation while its contracted form "y'all" is common among friends. Unfortunately, both terms have a patina of yokelness about them. "You guys" has made some inroads in the past few years though many southern women view "guys" as being male specific and are offended by it. Nobody down here would be caught dead using "yous" or "youns". We give Yankee transplants thirty days to drop the habit, or else. Personally, I usually use "you folks" as it is gender neutral and doesn't make me sound like a bumpkin. Bruce |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:04 AM "In America they've not spoken it for years..." Americans complaining about people not speaking correct Queen's English? When did the Empire Loyalists take over? Plural for you? What's wrong with that? Now that "you" has been transformed from being just a plural form of "thou" to cover both the singular and plural second person, there is clearly room for a variant which can indicate whether it's one person being addressed or several. In Ireland, and quite widely in England too, it's "yez", " or "yez'all". Perhaps it's time Standard Engklish legitimised this logical development. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Sorcha Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:11 AM Haven't seen "youse" go by yet...........(grin) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:12 AM My brother (and I) would spell using standard English because our dialect is vernacular and not generally a written form. I only change spelling from standard when I am trying to emphasise the accent/dialect. I live in a different part of the country to where my accent and dialect come from, but I haven't needed to change it in order to be understood - only slow down my speech a little - as Geordies are notorious for the speed of their speech. Most of my teachers used the local dialect to varying degrees - that doesn't mean I was unable to learn the standard English form and that they were unable to teach it. I notice the general tone of this thread is that dialectal variations in grammar are "incorrect". They are only incorrect in standard English. And that dialects are *inferior* to standard English. I wonder if some of this is a US/UK difference in the status of "yous". For example in a semi formal situation I probably wouldn't change *yous*, but I would avoid using other dialectal words that tend to be used only in very informal situations - eg *divvent* instead of don't. Maybe *yous* in wherever you are in the US is a much more informal use compared to UK (more comparable to divvent). Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bill D Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:19 AM this does push one of my buttons...*grin* I agree with Alice--- there is a place for dialect and the use of regional variants. What bothers me is people who seemingly never look at or listen to themselves and 'think' about their use of language. As to the question of whether there IS a 'standard'....sure there is! Just tune in to one of the major nightly news broadcasts. It is not a 100% infallible guide, but I will assure you Tom Brokaw does not say "youse" or "y'all". It is perfectly fine to switch to your preferred local variant at times, but everyone should know what my German teacher in college called "Die Umgangsprache"...that is, the accepted 'default' form of the language (yes, even this changes gradually with time.) School teachers who CANNOT switch or do not know that they are using a word generally considered sub-standard should be informed and encouraged to improve their image. It can happen that an otherwise decent teacher can lose respect because of careless language. (I once listened to a radio talk show where an African-American woman was defending the use of "Ebonics" and the Black 'language' variants by kids. She was pefectly capable of switching--appearing on a radio show and speaking 'standard' English, but suggesting at the same time that young black kids be allowed to grow up unable to adapt and thus limiting their job markets and social acceptance...all because it was their 'right' to speak as they pleased!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:21 AM I suppose I could be out of line, but it just seems to me that school is where one learns the general (!) rules of communication whether it's written, spoken, signed, or in languages other than English, including the brave new computer-speak. Some standards should apply in order that understanding is not lost. "Y's" (I like that spelling Bagpuss) is understood perfectly, but it is not the language of the press, of the books I read, or of my home. I admit that could change, but I don't admit it should, there being better choices for change in English language use. Oh boy, another thread topic! Anyway, the school seems to me to be a place where general rules of communication should be used, especially by those who teach. There is no doubt the teacher knows better, but she apparently felt it was acceptable speech even in her professional capacity. I also know my child knows better, but not every child in the classroom will, and I think that helps create a disparity between those students who know and those who don't. Language evolves, but an elemantary school is hardly at the forefront of that evolution. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Burke Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:28 AM Thee & thou are both 2nd person familiar. I think one is as subject the other object (same as I vs. me) As with French Vous, You used to be either 2nd person formal or 2nd person plural. Perhaps as a reaction against the Quakers' use of the familiar thee, thou for everyone, 'You' became both familar and formal. Ye disappeared along the way as well. King James English used familar thee, thou when addressing God. In the usage change the English Bible & hymns from the period remained more fixed & now about the only one addressed with familar forms is God. Unfortunately, thee, thou seemingly reserved for God alone feels formal to us today & we have lost the Daddy or Papa (Abba) feeling when addressing God. I have even read criticisms of modern translations that use 'you' for God as being too familiar. We still need a plural for the 2nd person so dialectly we've invented y'all, yous, youns, etc. I moved from Louisana's y'all to Minnesota's you guys as a teenager. Then the women's movement came along. I can't say I use a plural a lot, but tend to say something like you folks when needed. What's used in the UK? If thou wants to insist on 'you' being used, perhaps thou shouldst consider reviving thee & thou. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Art Thieme Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:30 AM No judgment here----and I mean that, but around this part of Illinois, the only folks that say yuz, youse, and the like are waitresses in family restaurants. Why that is the case, I have no idea. Just what is. Example: "Are yuz ready to order." I have always come out on stage and said, "Howdy folks !" Quite often this got an almost instantasneous and judgmentally questioning, "HOWDY???" back from some member of the audience----as if I had just revealed myself to be some sort of less-than-educated urban hayseed. Personally, I thought it was a very friendly greeting --------from one person to another-----and nothing more (or less). But we humans do get to feeling superior utilizing one-upmanship almost any way we can to achieve that perception of superiority----whether actual or the stuff of fantasy. We humans are pretty fantastic, or so it seems. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:31 AM But who is to say that the teacher in question was incapable of switching? Maybe it just comes down to a difference in what he/she considered appropriate for that particular meeting and what Mooh considered appropriate. That's hardly a sacking offence, is it? Again, since I don't know just how informal the US *yous* is, I can't comment on whether everyone would be expected to consider it inappropriate. I just know I wouldn't consider the equivalent in UK English to be so informal that it should never be used in the situation described. I think we can teach kids standard English and therefore expand their horizons and opportunities without implicitly teaching them that their own dialect (and by extension their social class and community) is somehow inferior. One way to do that is for the teachers to show (by example) that they can use both forms and point the way for when each form is the norm and advantageous. Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:34 AM Everybody here has valid points. Let me use myself as an example. Someone mentioned that children learn the local vernacular before they ever get to school. That's true. We used the local vernacular in school to talk amongst ourselves..... but I don't recall a single teacher, even here in the Nashville, TN public school system, who didn't use proper grammar in the classroom. I was taught proper grammar, I know how to use proper grammar, and I have a college degree to prove it. However, in informal situations, all bets are off. Grammar rules go out the window. A person's speech is individual like their handwriting. Everybody who has perfect standard handwriting, raise your hand. Anybody? That's what I thought. Anyway, yes, the teacher probably should have been more formal in her speech to you. But as long as she teaches the kids the right way to speak, and the kids are doing well, I don't see anything wrong with it. As I said before, perhaps she has other gifts that make her a good teacher. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Rick Fielding Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:36 AM Hey listen up youse guys. Is there any reason to think that teachers don't reflect the "dumbing down" that we see all around us? I feel for you Mooh; right or wrong I would consider that teacher pretty unhelpful as an educator, and all you can do is try to counter things at home. As much as I have fallen into a kind of oddball style on Mudcat of using words like "ya" for you, and "yer" for your, and worst of all, abbreviating "ing" to "in'" I still really appreciate hearing someone speak correctly. We all use some form of colloquialisms (I DO say "eh"? occasionally) but I'd hope that teachers would resist the urge. Cheers Rick |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Nigel Parsons Date: 30 Oct 02 - 11:56 AM I was surprised when talking to my daughter's junior school teacher (my daughter was about 9 at that time) that she explained the system of marking some test papers. "The paper has 25 marks available, so to get a percentage we times it by four" I had often wondered where the children were getting that expression from. Also, at one time, my son's English exercise book had several corrections in it, made by the teacher. In each case the teacher had corrected the spelling 'learnt' (past tense of to learn) to learned! What chance for the youth of today ? Nigel |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bill D Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:04 PM " Is there any reason to think that teachers don't reflect the "dumbing down" that we see all around us?" exactly, Rick....schools are desperate for teachers for various reasons, and they are accepting 'warm bodies' that once would have been only on the waiting list. Sad situation, and no easy solution. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: mg Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:25 PM You guys in NW USA. Generally considered gender-neutral but there will always be those who argue. mg |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,curmudgeon Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:28 PM Point of clarification and explanation of usage: I am, tthou art;, me, thee; mine, thine; my, thy. I must add my agreement with Rick and Bill. I have nearly twenty years formal teaching experience. I can't get a job though because a school can hire two college grads for what they would have to pay me. In those few months when I am fortunate enough to have a real job, I read student tests, grade school and high school. Some papers are great, some are awful, most are mediocre. But what is worse is the poorly worded quiestions and the horrible choice of passages used to test our young. Two years ago I was asked to edit the test booklets for a state that shall remain nameless. It should have been a simple proofing job. However, some ed. official had gotten there first and miscorrected all of the quotations, missed most of the typos, and scrawled across a passage about the popularity of a well known youthful wizard, "NO HARRY POTTER!" Vernacular is fine, but not at the cost of effective communication -- Tom |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Jeanie Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:31 PM It can only get worse, Nigel, as the badly taught become teachers themselves, knowing no better. I was intrigued last week, reading the website for the A Level Psychology course run by Palmer's Sixth Form College in Grays, Essex, which included: "Social Psychology, egg prejudice; Cognitive psychology, egg forgetting; Learning Approach, egg phobias; Clinical Psychology, egg schizophrenia" It promised to be really rather interesting, until I realized this was nothing to do with the oval things that emerge from hens, but simply egg = e.g. = exempli gratia = for example !! My daughter's school holds an annual concert given by the holders of music scholarships. This was billed, in the invitation, the reply slip and the programme as the "Scholar's Concert". When I was teaching at the same school, our handwritten reports (one A4 page per subject per pupil)had to be proof-read by the Form Tutor, Head of Department and Head of Year for grammatical and spelling mistakes. This would have been all well and good, but for the fact that every time I had written "practise" (the verb) as in "X needs to practise more", it had been incorrectly "corrected" by the Head of Year to "practice" (the noun) . I never dared to count how many of the blessed reports I had to re-write. - jeanie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Declan Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:39 PM Since we're all being pedantic around here Nigel are you sure you're right about the learned/learnt thing. I always thought that "learnt" was the past participle (*i Can't wait for the spelling corrections on that*) but the past tense was "learned" - for example My Mother learned to sing this song in school but This is a song, learnt in school by my Mother |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Nigel Parsons Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:57 PM Declan: it probably depends on the dictionary being used. Most will give learnt with learned as an alternative. But this does not excuse the teacher crossing out a correctly used word in favour of another. Learned causes confusion as it has a main meaning (not as a secondary spelling) of "having great knowledge or erudition" as in 'My learned friend' Nigel |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,iggy pop Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:05 PM I'm a teacher and your hair would curl at some of the things you hear in the common room now. At first it can make you feel superior, but after a while you realise that it's a generational thing. That doesn't mean you get used to it. This is a great site by the way. iggy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Amos Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:13 PM It is one thing to accept a trend toward standardization which seems to move the language toward greater flexibility; and quite another to hasten the corruption of the language by losing touch with important conventions, such as (IMHO) the difference between you and youse. The "thee and thou" component of this discussion is anachronistic; the words are not in mainstream usage and have not been for decades; they appear in cultural dialects and historical contexts such as the Elizabethan, Amish, and parts of the UK with very long memories!:>) The maintenance of two forms of past tense, one ending with -t and one with -ed, has always struck me as slightly cumbersome and arbitrary because the contexts in which they are used provide plenty of insight into which is meant; so cleaving to the endings is extra freight in most instances I can think of just now. Burnt vs. burned, learnt vs. learned, (not lurn-Ed) perhaps the archaic skint versus skinned...where's the beef? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: ballpienhammer Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:14 PM how about you'uns pronounced yuns in PA. Basic SW PA dialect. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: chip a Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:19 PM Well I think it's a great thing this teacher is doing. Providing you with someone to feel superior to and all. My daughter is providing the same service here in the southern U.S. She's a very gifted special ed. teacher who calls her students y'all and lord only knows what other awful stuff. Of course, having been raised in the mountains she can't help her backwards ways. We're just proud she has enough sense to find her way to school every day. And so are her students. :-) Chip |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: MudGuard Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:20 PM Mooh, was the teacher older than you? Then, perhaps, she said "youth" ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:25 PM Update. At lunch my daughter informed me that her teacher regularly uses the expression "yous" with small groups or individual students but "probably" wouldn't use it with the whole class. I see little distinction. Further, my kid noticed the use during the meeting and knew I'd have an opinion about it. Her observation, without my prodding, was that the teacher lived in a certain vicinity and that's how they speak there. Kids are observant. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,iggy folk Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:25 PM I'd hate to cast aspersions on the *real* iggy. I meant to sign in as 'iggy folk' above, just as a joke (yes I know, a very *little* joke) but back to the subject being discussed. Someone mentioned earlier that bad grammar was hardly a 'sacking offence'. At first I thought 'well of course not', but now I'm thinking that perhaps being exposed to a teacher who was that careless over a whole semester could be quite detrimental to a student. Might it at some time prevent the student from getting a specific job? It could. iggy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: 53 Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:33 PM yous. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,iggy folk Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:35 PM Well 'y'all' would certainly not get my attention, but 'youse' would. I guess it would be the same if I heard another teacher use the word 'ain't' on a regular basis. That's not regional, it simply *is* bad grammar. At least I think it is, but I'm starting to get confused now. iggy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Chip2447 Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:40 PM Hey youse guys, all y'all need to lighten up a little, this aint like axing a question. I have to say that AX drives me bonkers. I dont think I have ever heard anyone use the word yous. Always the two of you, or you three, you guys. Chip2447 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:40 PM MudGuard...The teacher is at least 10, if not 15 or more years my junior. chip a...Superior? I don't feel that way at all. This has to do the the appropriate use of language. Introducing it as a discussion topic has to do with gathering opinion from a very wide cross-section of society, hoping to receive input from an even wider geographic area. In the process I (and we) reveal our character to each other. I'm sorry if you read it as superiority. I am learning that I very much do not share my opinion with everyone on this matter, and I am getting some interesting education in return. Thanks be to Mudcat. Thanks for your interest. Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: treewind Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:53 PM MMario, "thou" is an old form that is specifically singular. The only specific plural of "you" I know of (and I have heard people use it that way in living memory) is "ye". It's very useful sometimes too, for making that distinction. Now all we need is a word to distinguish "we" (you and I) from "we" (other persons(s) and I) and similar for "our" and "us" Anahata |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Q Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:00 PM Perhap the "learned" correction stems from the "teach" watching American television. Lernt (learnt?)- as an American, I even have trouble spelling it, it is seldom used. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary says: "Learnt- Chiefly Brit. past and past part. of learn." As such, I changed it (and similar words) when I was editing for an American journal, but left it alone if the journal was international. My learned friend- we are taught to use the pronunciation, learnéd. (See Webster's). A sister-in-law who taught in Georgia emphasized "you" for formal or written speech, but you all for conversational, informal speech. These regional concessions must be made. She taught that "all you all" was redundant; you was singular and you all was pl. Bagpuss, I spent a few weeks in the Edinburgh area. When I arrived, I was unfamiliar with the region, and approached a table (drinking establishment of course) to ask directions- with some trepidation, because I could only understand the odd word (including whissst!). They answered in good grammatical English. As I left they switched back. I hope that the dialect and vernacular of regions are not lost- they should be taught along with what, I think you call it, the "Queen's English." I have posted this in another similar discussion; if you saw it, forgive the repetition. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Retired Teacher Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:13 PM Here is the US at least, the kids learn to speak English from television, the grammar and the pronounciation as well--this creates an antiseptic sameness in children's language that can be quite disconcerting to those of us who began teaching when regional "accents" were widespread-- I recently visited a town in Massachussetts where I had worked, many years ago, only to find that the charming and distinctive "Boston" accent has nearly disappeared--and along with it, many delightful phrases and figures of speech--There was little to quarrel about, grammatically, but, the conversation was a little dull-- Teachers once spoke a rather overcorrected and somewhat artificial sort of English that we vigorously imposed on our pupils--who could blame us? They spoke a thousand variants of English, each with its own peculiar vernacular--but each also had its own brash style, and sadly, we seem to have lost that, as well-- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:14 PM It's not a good idea for "standard English" to get too out of line with vernacular English. In practice some version of "yez" or "yous" or "y'all" and so forth is the normal way people talk to each other, because there's a gap in "standard English". Nothing to do with sloppy use of language, just natural logical language development, and nobody every gets confused about what it means when they come across a different variant. There is lazy language and there are ways of talking which get in the way of communication (glottal stops and so forth - "wo' a lo' o' bo'ols" for example, for "what a lot of bottles"), and it's a good idea to try to help enable people to speak in a way that is easy to understand. But people who fuss about expressions like "yous" or "ain't" are just making it harder for people to concentrate on encouraging people to avoid using language in ways that do interfere with communication and that can limit opportunities. That kind of niggling just provides an easy way to make such efforts appear futile and ridiculous. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: CapriUni Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:19 PM From Art Thieme: I have always come out on stage and said, "Howdy folks !" Quite often this got an almost instantasneous and judgmentally questioning, "HOWDY???" back from some member of the audience----as if I had just revealed myself to be some sort of less-than-educated urban hayseed. "Howdy" is, of course, a contraction of the older "How do ye do?" Which, as followers of this thread will note, is specifically addressed to the second person plural... But as I've never heard "Howthee", I suspect it came into practice in the last 200 years or so, after "thee" was dropped from common speach. It's the same sort of contraction as Good-bye, which is a contraction of "God be wi'(th) ye." So, unless that audience member also thinks "Good-bye" is bad grammar, she or he should not complain about "Howdy." As for Quakers using Thee and thou for every (single) body, not just their social superiors, well, that's not bad grammar, that's using grammar properly to make a point -- the point being that Quakers (or more properly, Friends) hold as one of their central tenets of faith that there are no "social superiors"... that we are all equal members of a human family. Of course, this really gets up the nose of all those who base the value of their existance on being socially superior to others... That, also, was the point. ;-) Grammar conscious Quakers will use "thou" for the nominative singular, "thee" for the objective singular, and "you" and "ye" for the plural of both, respectively... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: InOBU Date: 30 Oct 02 - 03:11 PM Someone beat me to it. ye. Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie Date: 30 Oct 02 - 03:17 PM "Axe" as in "to ask" goes back at least to Middle English. Chaucer is full of people who axe each other questions. It is interesting to me that something once so common is now considered incorrect. I say "ain't" all the time in informal situations. I would not use it in a formal situation; i.e., (egg?!) teaching a class or making a presentation. Regional dialects make speech more interesting and fun. And it isn't just in English, either. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Oct 02 - 03:29 PM I suspect those eggs are probably the work of an over enthusiastic spellchecker that hasn't been checked. "Ain't" is perfectly good English; just as good as "aren't" or "can't"; it's a bit odd the way that the compoanion contraction "amn't" has dropped out of use. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Q Date: 30 Oct 02 - 03:45 PM Adding thread creep to thread creep- Art Thieme reminded me that Minnie Pearl always came on stage with "How-DY!" at the Grand Old Opry. The audience (including the radio audience) hollered back "How-DY!," and was immediately ready and in a good mood for her routines. Re Retired Teacher's comments, the complaint about speech being uniform in America was already being made around 1900. My grandather published a column about a traveling member of English nobility who bemoaned the lack of variety in the spoken American Language. Retired teacher is correct about television. It has not only standardized the language but also spread incorrect usage, such as "co-vert" for cov-ert. Dictionaries have changed to incorporate the new majority pronunciation. The loss of affect and effect to "impact" may be laid at its feet as well. There is an element of truth to "proactive," however. You immediately know that the speaker may be in favor of something, but will do nothing to implement it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: chip a Date: 30 Oct 02 - 04:24 PM Mooh, You said yokel and you question all her abilities based on the use of one word. Maybe I misunderstood you? :-) Chip |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GutBucketeer Date: 30 Oct 02 - 05:06 PM When I was in third grade my teacher, Miss McKissik, taught us the proper use of you singular as you, and you plural as y'all which is a contraction of "you all". She was from Mississippi and explained very simply that yankees just didn't have the sense to speak correctly. We wrote it out and everything. Of course, if y'all is used inappropriately then it is a real sign of ignorance. Gutbucketeer So there! Now what gets me is when people use lighted instead of lit such as "I lighted the lamp". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Oct 02 - 05:10 PM
MMario touched on the answer to part of this discussion, and I'll give illustrations. There will be a test following the lecture. What is being discussed here is "grammar," which is another word in linguistic circles for "manners." We all communicate, and whether we use Yous or You or Thou, we make ourselves understood. That is communications. How we do it, the words we choose ("grammar"), are simply a form of manners, (does one know the proper word to choose in which occasion? Is a subject or object or direct object involved, i.e. who/whom discussions?). We're also seeing the effect of the printing press. The "Thou vs You" discussion comes from the removal by early printers of the "thorn" or Th combination. Th was simplified to Y. So "Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe" should be pronounced THE Olde Coffee Shoppe because the Y is supposed to represent the TH sound. But we can read and we know what Y in most instances is supposed to sound like so we've corrupted this spoken bit of our language in preference to the written form. I learned this the hard way, so pay attention, any of you who think your English is so superior to anyone else's that you must correct them. Back in my uppity undergraduate days when I must have thought I was god's gift to the English language I took a letter from a friend, corrected his English, and mailed it back. And promptly lost that friend. Someone told me years later why I'd never heard from him again--that he'd been devastated by this little act that I hadn't thought about in years. I hope you're all blushing as you read this--I am as I write it. It was unconscionable. I had a wonderful class in the mid-1990's on the History and Development of the English Langauge. I remember, at the beginning of the class, thinking how amusing it must sound when this professor, with a broad West Texas accent, taught Shakespeare (another of his specialties) with that accent. As we proceeded through the course, I realized how snobbish I'd been. And now I make a point to focus on what people are trying to say. We all use language differently, and post colonial theorists will tell you that captive cultures have wonderfully witty ways of "signifying" to get double meanings into their use of English (in this context) as the colonizer's language. Language serves lots of masters. All of this said, before my master's in English and learning all of this great stuff, I didn't want my children to grow up with a Texas drawl, so I corrected them if they came home from school or play with some of these dipthongs peppering their speech. I'm from north of Seattle, and have Norwegian inflections in my English. I have realized that my children are bilingual. At home they speak English that to my ears is unaccented. But with their friends they have a few Texas terms that creep in. I now know better than to worry about it. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 30 Oct 02 - 06:45 PM chip a...Perhaps I haven't made my point well, but the point is that in a professional capacity a rather unprofessional use of language (I thought, though there are obviously those who disagree) does not represent a teacher's abilities well. I characterized the expression as a yokel colloquialism, so what? I'm a yokel too, but I wouldn't use language in a such an unschooled way when the situation calls for a schooled manner of speech. Besides, my use of language here in Mudcatville is not the same as the situation I described in my original post. As I described, apparently the teacher uses the expression regularly with students, so I think I have some justification for my misgivings. I'd rather "yous" wasn't used in the classroom, and the teacher's use of it in a meeting led me to discover that it is. If that's all it is, so be it. If it's an indicator of other things, I'm concerned. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear, chip. Thanks all for your input, this has been an interesting and enlightening chat. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mrrzy Date: 30 Oct 02 - 06:49 PM I'm trying to use the Quaker thee when talking to just ONE of the twins, so they don't ask Both of us or just me? - and You for the plural, but I also like You/Y'All, since I live in the South and it's everywhere... but I don't say either thee or y'all in constrained circumstances. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Amos Date: 30 Oct 02 - 06:54 PM If speaking to both, Mrz, how about "th'all"? Makes it clear that personal closeness is still implied. :>) A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mr Red Date: 31 Oct 02 - 08:29 AM Winston Churchill was there long since when he said. "This is the kind of English, up with which we will not put." Mind you I think is body language was a bit more colloqial. V |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Declan Date: 31 Oct 02 - 10:37 AM While I don't get that upset about you,Yiz, Yous, Ye etc. there is one thing that I find quite irritating and that is where people use the Present Participle in situations where I would have thought the past participle was more appropriate. For example many of the English people reading this post will probably think "That Declan needs his head examining", whereas I would think it more correct to say "That Declan needs his head examined". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: katlaughing Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:15 AM This is a good case for children learning manners, as SRS says, from their parents. If they know what is correct then the teacher's usage should not be a problem, though I wouldn't care for her use of it, either. I've always used you guys until I had a wonderful professor from Africa point out to me that I was excluding all members of the same sex as myself, so I swtiched to you folks. Of course, all bets are off at Mudcat where some of us like to hone our skills at writing in the venacular! There are always going to be elements in our children's lives which don't meet our standards. All we can do is teach them what we feel if proper and know that it usually sticks.:-) kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:27 AM "Guy" can refer to women, just the same way "bird" can refer to men (viz PG Wodehouse books). I suspect "you guys" may well be more common among women these days than among men. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: EBarnacle1 Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:30 AM Amos, is that the thee-all and end all? We could always revert to the German "du" for the informal you and "sie" for the formal and plural. If we do that, we could also follow the German example and not call anyone du until we sit sit down and share a drink and agree to be informal. Of course, for those of us who don't drink, this could also create an issue. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: chip a Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:30 AM I think that focusing on our differences causes.........differences! Of course we are all different and differences in our speech can be a celebration of that. When we think of another as somehow inferior because of this kind of difference, though, we set the stage for our own basest characteristics to come to the fore. "Every time I go to town, the boys start kickin' my dog around" Well, it is a music forum! Sorry, Mooh. It's me being overly defensive rather than you being superior. :-) Chip |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: InOBU Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:35 AM Silly RIver! Right you are, the y without the bend on the end was a different sound then the y with the curl, it represted a thorn and was called, funny enough, a thorn. So ye would have been pronounced the in ye old tavern, but ye as the plural of you would have had the curl and been pronouced ye, ... cheers Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie Date: 31 Oct 02 - 12:12 PM EBarnacle, it isn't even as simple as that.... "sie" can also mean "she" or "it" or "they" or "them." Then there's "Sie" with a capital S, which is you-formal............. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST Date: 31 Oct 02 - 12:42 PM When I moved to WVa from Phila( where we regularly said "youse or you guys", I was politely informed of the proper way to say the plural of you. I asked a few friends "What are youse doing this weekend?" They asked "What is youse?" I said "You and you are youse!" They said "No man, That's y'all" And actually "Y'all" really does flow off the tongue quite smoothly! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Burke Date: 31 Oct 02 - 12:47 PM This being the US, land using first names immediately upon introduation, any revival of 2nd person singular, whether thee or du should be applied as the Quakers did (do?) to everyone. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 Oct 02 - 01:14 PM Stilly--InOBU--a shortened local term for the Stillaguamish River. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Don Firth Date: 31 Oct 02 - 01:43 PM When I worked at Boeing some years ago, the woman who worked at the next drawing table was from Texas, and she had quite a—what?—accent? Drawl? Anyway, she mentioned that one of her relatives had "three all way-ulls" in his back yard. It took some probing to learn that he had three oil wells in his back yard! She and I got to discussing regional accents and general use of language. Very enlightening. It's not necessarily ignorance or general lack of education. She pointed out that comedians or actors trying to imitate a Southern accent usually get it all wrong. On the matter of "you all" (or "y'all"), she explained to me that it's not just a regionalism; it communicates something specific. "If I'm having a dinner party and I say 'why don't you come?' I mean 'you.' Just you. But if I say 'why don't y'all come?' I mean 'bring your family.'" Makes perfect sense to me. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: EBarnacle1 Date: 31 Oct 02 - 01:46 PM Good point, Kim C, I took German too long ago. Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions in life. There are, however, elegant ones. Why not start over with a new set of terms? That way the words would carry no his{make that her}story. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 02 - 02:33 PM Plenty of people have tried the kind of thing EBarnacle suggests. Can't be done. Language doesn't work that way. But people somehow always seem to invent new ways of dealing with the difficulties - in spite of the efforts of other people to stop them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie Date: 31 Oct 02 - 04:00 PM MMario et al: "thou" is singular; "ye" is plural. Beyond that, methinks this thread proves little beyond the universal compulsion to fill up dialog boxes. Otherwise we could debate the relative merits of the French youx, the Hebrew youim, the Polynesian you-you, the Latin youii, the Pigeon you-fella, the Spanish youes, the German youen and the phonetic uu. CC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: EBarnacle1 Date: 31 Oct 02 - 04:19 PM Charlie, we just haven't gotten that far, yet. We might, though. We are enjoying ourselves and shooting bull at each other, with no harm done to anyone. There's even a little real information built in. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Lyle Date: 31 Oct 02 - 04:38 PM Gosh, and here I've been wrong all these years when I say things like, "May I yous your pen?" This is really a nonsense discussion. There is one and only one language that is pure and uniform - MATHEMATICS!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: CapriUni Date: 31 Oct 02 - 05:15 PM Okay, now that I'm thinking about it... (dangerous thing, thinking ;-)), which is correct: Thou is or Thou are (or "art")? Since "thou" is singular, my first thought is "thou is ___" is correct. But I've almost always heard it as "thou art ____" instead... Just wondering... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 02 - 05:31 PM I am Thou art He she or it is We are You are They are. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Snuffy Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:41 PM I do thou dost he/she/it does we/you/they do I have thou hast he/she/it has we/you/they have etc etc |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Steve Latimer Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:01 PM When I was taking Grade 10 English the teacher overheard one of my classmates say youse guys. He very dramtically said "You use a hammer, you use a saw, you DON'T youse guys". It's stuck with me ever since. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:06 PM But isn't doing precisely that the basis of the economic system under which we exist? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: CapriUni Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:27 PM Thanks, Snuffy and McGrath! I've got it now, I think... One thing about this dropping of "Thou/Thee" -- it sure does lead to fuzzier thinking about language. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: mmb Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:31 PM Uh-oh! I feel a lecture coming on . . . I thought I was NEVER going to reach the end of this thread!!! But I read every message, and mentally crossed out items I might have addressed when I saw they had been more than adequately dispatched. Right up front, a disclaimer: I am not only a former teacher and principal, but am now a central office administrator, responsible for managing the state certification and subsequent professional development programs of some 900 Catholic-school teachers in Florida's Tampa Bay area. I am also in my 60's, and agree whole-heartedly that part of the issue under discussion is generational, part is regional, and part has to do with the expectations parents have of those with whom they share the responsibility (Dare I say "privilege"?) of educating their children. Previous postings have touched upon formal vs informal speech, sensitivity to colloquialisms, and an ear for dialects. There have been several references to what might be called "a sense of the appropriate." Sociology was invoked to help explain the "creep" of what were formerly considered inflexible rules of grammar and syntax. And psychology goes a long way towards explaining the intensity (or lack thereof) when long-internalized rules appear to be de-valued in critical circumstances (such as the education of our children). The very fact that there are rules or conventions governing the use of language is as important to some as it is irritating to others, and the lack of consensus is - to me - the real crux of this thread, on both sides of The Pond. As an example, permit me a little thread-creep, please, into my own personal angst at two flagrant, pervasive, seemingly ubiquitous and irreversible corruptions of grammar and syntax in current popular American speech and writing. (One is only marginally thread-creep, I think, because it jumped out at me as I read the very first posting in this thread, and I read all the way through to see if even one other person would address it. Unless it happened while I was writing this, I rest my case.) But first: It seems that wherever one turns today it is impossible to avoid substitution of the plural "their" for the singular "his or her" when the antecedent is singular, e.g., "Who left their book on the table?" I haven't yet seen it in textbooks, but when I hear it defended as "gender-neutral language," or as "ink and space economical," it's like fingernails running down my mental chalkboard. The second strikes me as even more egregious because - to me, at least - it represents the failure of an entire generation of teachers to instill just a tidbit of critical judgement into deciding when to use "I" or "me" in association with another person. In fact, most Americans today automatically default to "I" in all situations, because all they remember is being told repeatedly to say "xxx and I" - with no context applied. What I, and my generation of teachers learned to teach was a simple test: Which would you substitute for "XXX and I/me," "We" or "Us"? If you would say "We," then the correct choice is "XXX and I." No one has trouble seeing the error of "Us did it," but don't realize that that is the reason why "Tom and me did it" is incorrect form. In like manner, if one can see clearly why it is not acceptable usage to say "The teacher addressed WE," why is it so difficult to transfer that judgement to the correct form: ". . . the teacher addressed my wife and ME?" I think I need to avoid threads that set me into lecture mode. Happy what's-left-of-Hallowe'en, youse-all! M. : ) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Jon Bartlett Date: 01 Nov 02 - 12:09 AM Thanks, mmb, some good points. Who, by the by (an American ?novelist) wrote: "He heard a knock at the door. 'Whom is it?' he said, because he had been to college." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mark Cohen Date: 01 Nov 02 - 04:01 AM It sure sounds like Garrison Keillor, Jon, but I suspect it's earlier than that...maybe James Thurber? But I was going to make a nitpicking point that doesn't seem to have been made yet--possibly because it's wrong! I seem to recall reading somewhere that Quakers didn't use "thou" but instead used "thee" for both subject and object. Am I just making that up, or is it true? Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: IanC Date: 01 Nov 02 - 05:11 AM Mark You're making it up. Anyway, Quakers use "You" now, like everybody else. Some, from meetings around Fritchley in Derbyshire, continued the usage into the 1970s and wore formal "old" quaker costumes too. In the early 70s, though, the few who were left rejioned the main body of the Society. :-) Ian |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Declan Date: 01 Nov 02 - 05:24 AM mmb, The use of the term they/their in the singular has been in use in many parts of Ireland for years. It isn't something that came from a desire for gender neutrality. I know a lot of blatantly sexist people who use this all the time. But it is a form I like because it does serve that purpose. I've heard people tie themselves up in knots in only a few short sentences because they've insisted in using He or she and his or her every time they (or should I say he or she) needed to use one of these pronouns. Its sometimes difficult to get a point across if this sort of verbosity is required. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 01 Nov 02 - 07:54 AM "Their", in situations where strict grammar would indicate "his or her", seems to me a perfectly logical and convenient development of language. I see it as analogous to the way that the formerly plural "you" has come to be accepted as the normal singular second person (resulting in a perceived need for a replacement plural second person, met by such terms as "yous" or "yez" or "y'all", and this remarkable thread.) But I'm with you all the way, mmb, on the I - me issue, when it arises from a failed and misplaced attempt to sound correct. (Leaving aside the separate issue which arises when what is involved in using the "wrong" personal pronoun isn't that, but reflects a regional or dialect usage.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: HuwG Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:06 AM mmn quoth thus: "It seems that wherever one turns today it is impossible to avoid substitution of the plural "their" for the singular "his or her" when the antecedent is singular..." There is a story of some magistrate in Britain, with apparently only a fuzzy grasp of grammar and political correctness, who said when passing sentence, "It is clear from the evidence that you felled your victim with a head-butt, and then kicked your victim in their testicles..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: annamill Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:17 AM Gee. I always thought it was spelt "youse", but I grew up in New Jersey. **BG** Love, Annamill |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Bagpuss Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:26 AM Many of the *rules* of English grammar were artifically imposed on the English language - borrowed from Latin in an attempt to make the language more prestigious and *logical*. I believe the I/me rule came about in this way. Prior to this grammatical borrowing it was widespread and *correct* to say eg "Me and Fred are going out". Then the rule was borrowed from Latin and the upper classes started making the distinction so as to distinguish themselves from the unlearned lower classes who knew nothing of Latin. And because the higher class way of speaking became known as the correct grammar it started to be used (often incorrectly) by the rest of England who wanted to appear educated but didn't really know what the new rule was. The French don't say "Pierre et je........" but "Pierre et moi......" in the context we are talking about - and their language is more directly related to Latin. I don't know how common the distinction is in other languages. Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Ringer Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:28 AM MMario (your post 30 Oct 10:54am), and Stilly Rive Sage (your post 30 Oct 02 05:10pm): I don't think the history of the English language permits the belief that "you" developed from "thou" by a misreading of the thorn character. In Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon, spoken by Germanic settlers in Britain from C5 to C11 approx) the 2nd-person personal pronouns had 3 forms by number, distinguishing singular, dual and plural (as I understand Welsh does? but I'm no expert on Welsh - come to that, I'm no expert on English, either, but can read text-books as well as any man), as follows. Since I don't know how to get HTML to put a horizontal line over an "e", "i" or a "u" to make the vowel-sound that echoes the letter's pronunciation, I use acute accents; g is pronounced "y" approx - I won't go into voiced velar fricatives or palatal fricatives - and I represent the thorn character by an italicised th, thus: th. Nom & Voc sing: thú (whence thou) I live in north Derbyshire (UK), where the familiar 2nd-person singular may still be heard - particularly in pubs (is that because alcohol tends to remove the veneer that years of listening to the BBC have imposed, and makes us revert to childhood speech patterns?) - though in a very degenerate form. Oddly enough, the mainland Europeans, of whom we have a constant succession staying, and who I always try to introduce to "the pub", and who have such a (less degenerate) form, seem to be incapable of hearing it, even when I point it out. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: CapriUni Date: 01 Nov 02 - 10:44 AM Quakers use "You" now, like everybody else. Some, from meetings around Fritchley in Derbyshire, continued the usage into the 1970s and wore formal "old" quaker costumes too. In the early 70s, though, the few who were left rejioned the main body of the Society. Well, most of who left, perhaps... but you cannot know for sure that all do... Our own 'Catter InOBU (Larry)-- unless he's been pulling our collective legs all this time ;-) -- continues to use 'thee' and 'thou' on occasion, as well as wear the old plain clothes. It's not the path I ever took as a Quaker, since I thought the philosophy of such habits was not to call attention to the individual as an ego.... But if that is the call the Spirit and his Conscience gave him, I'll not be the one to say "Nay". One thing I did acquire from my mother was a strong aversion to gross generalization, particalurly of those with whom you do not identify... (another pronoun gripe coming up). She'd say to me: :::Drum Roll::: "They is a four-letter word!" PS. Larry, I still love the idea of you meeting that "gaggle" of teens from Falwell's Camp at your door in plain Quaker garb, and giving your speach with all the thee's and thy's in place... I keep visualizing them looking behind you, to see if Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima will show up (!) ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: SharonA Date: 01 Nov 02 - 02:48 PM Mark: No, you're not making it up. IanC may be speaking of Quakers across the pond, but here in the US I have both read and heard the use of the word "thee" by Quakers where a King-James-Bible writer would have used "thou". In fact, I've heard and read Quakers using "thee has" instead of "thou hast". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: SharonA Date: 01 Nov 02 - 03:03 PM (continued) Likewise, I've heard and read Quakers using "thee is" instead of "thou art", and so forth. As for the original question, I agree with Mooh that the teacher should not have used "yous" in her conversation during her meeting with her pupil's parents, precisely because it leaves parents with the impression that Mooh describes: that the teacher may be derelict in her duty to teach her students the proper use of grammar and, perhaps, in other teaching responsibilities as well. As a teacher, one is a walking advertisement for one's school and its programs, so one needs to be "on duty", in a sense, constantly, always watchful of one's behavior, particularly in the company of parents who are the customers for the business of education. But, then, I too have left others with the impression that I am too judgmental (but never "to judgemental"! *G*). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Ard Mhaca Date: 01 Nov 02 - 04:14 PM And from the north of Ireland, everyday use, "what the hell are youse-ins on about".Ard Mhacha. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Hrothgar Date: 02 Nov 02 - 12:25 AM Jon G, If he had a college education, he should have said "Who is it?" because the verb to be takes the same case after it as before it, i.e., subjective case should be used for the object of a verb to be. Um, er, pedant alert? Ard M, I thought the universal usage in Ireland was "yez." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Jon Bartlett Date: 02 Nov 02 - 04:41 AM Yer right Hrothgar; but I presume this guy knew he ought to talk 'proper' but couldn't remember the right grammar. Mark, I think it was someone harder-boiled that either Keillor or Thurber. Ring Lardner? Dashiel Hammett (sp?). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 02 Nov 02 - 07:31 AM SharonA...LOL! I proofread that post and never caught the obvious "to". I often find that my second "o" doesn't happen when I type, or second "l", "c", or "s" for that mater...um...matter. It drives me nuts when I see others do it, but when I do it I'm pretty embarrassed, even if it is a typo. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: TNDARLN Date: 02 Nov 02 - 09:30 AM Warning: Rant to follow!!! MMB- I also could not wait to get to the end of this thread. Let me explain some background [as it applies to my response here] things about myself: I've been teaching for about 20 years- and I'll probably be one of those that they have to carry out [cold & stiff ] of the classroom. This is what I do, this is what I am, this is how I've been called to serve. I am not part of the NEA crowd or mindset. In fact, I hope I aggravate them at least as much as they aggravate me. I say that, to say I am against protecting incompetency/warm body "teachers" in classrooms. I also believe [and aspire to]that teachers should set a high moral standard for their students [run that'un by the NEA]. I believe this, in part, because, as Mooh pointed out in his original post, children DO notice what their teachers say/do. These same kids also notice what their parents say/do: and PLEASE remember: the parents are the child's first teachers. And I'm saying this generally, certainly not person-specific. I teach in a beautiful area of Appalachia that was formerly "out in the sticks" - poor white rural. However, as the metro area of a nearby city has encroached, the demographics have changed: now we have very expensive homes/subdivisions being built w/in sight of run-down [i.e., not double wide]trailers. I teach children whose parents expect them to get a good education, alongside with children who are there only to keep the social workers out of the parents' face for truancy charges. [And with kids' "fashion styles" being what they are today, it can be very difficult to tell which is which, especially when you throw in what the kids have to say about their own parents' behaviors.....] Because I teach music, I deal with regional dialects/phrases a lot as they appear in the folk song material. That's ok, because I am "big" on preserving regional culture- not remaking it. I want these kids to know and understand their roots- I want them to understand those "sayins" their grandparents used. [and since many of my kids are being raised by their grandparents while Mama's out doin' "her" thing, I want to strengthen those bonds with the GPs any way I can- I do not intend to alienate a child from the loving nurture of a grandparent by turning my nose up/their nose up at the way their grandparents talk] Teaching choral singing brings up a contradiction in all this: we cannot sing the way we talk. I'll show the kids how to form a vowel sound, for instance, and we'll do it correctly- and then, for contrast, we'll do it the way we'd say it. And they laugh! I've never had a kid miss the point on this. And then I stress to them: we have to learn how to sing together well, and we have to learn how to read, write, and communicate correctly. Then I say this to them: "But I don't wanna' mess wi' the way you tawlk." They know what I'm saying. I choose to fight the cultural homogenization/ "dumbing down" brought on by electronic media. Call it, "doing my thing for diversity...." Mooh, you could probably mention your concern to the teacher, and she'd either correct what she said, or she'd give you a discourse [!]as to why she does what she does. But from here, I'd say there are bigger concerns to be dealt with. Oops, I mean "with which to deal". That's my story, and I'm... TD [not tee'd! really!] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: Mooh Date: 02 Nov 02 - 10:10 AM Update: My kid brought this topic to my attention again and in the course of our conversation she informs that her teacher abbreviates her surname to simplify it for her students. I'd be afraid of a lawsuit if I got too deep into the specifics, but her full name doesn't seem to me to need abbreviation. I guess I'm learning something new every day, even things I don't want to know. I agree with TD above regarding the home being (hopefully) a bigger influence to students than school, but as I mentioned earlier, misuse of language can serve to widen the disparity between the kids who understand and those who don't, especially when the home isn't able to counter the misuse. Thanks Mudcatfolk for your information, opinion, discussion, and interest. I love this place! Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: SharonA Date: 04 Nov 02 - 01:07 PM Mooh: Glad you appreciated my joke! I wasn't sure whether the misspellings of "too" and "judgmental" were a joke on your part, or just typos. Anyway, I have to wonder whether the teacher's abbreviation of her surname is a matter of "dumbing it down" for her pupils, or a matter of having tired of seeing her full surname misspelled too often, or a matter of preferring to be called (for example) "Miss X" instead of "Miss Xavier". I have what I think is a simple surname but I've seen several creative misspellings of it! Hence the handle "SharonA"! :^) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Plural of you From: GUEST,Ard Mhacha Date: 04 Nov 02 - 01:22 PM Sorry to disagree with Hrot and Jon, but youse-ins are both wrong. After all I live here in the north of Ireland and I can assure youse-ins, that it aint yez. Ard Mhacha. |