Thursday 1 September 2005

Linguistic Observation

Spending time talking to Americans has led me to discover some interesting gramatical developments in trans-Atlantic English colloquialisms.

There exist, in Scottish and in American English, widely used plural forms of "You". Originally "You" was the plural form of thee/thou, but 'you' became used for both singular and plural. As there are some occasions when there is a need for differentiation, the new forms have developed. So the colloquial plural forms of You are:
American: Y'all
Scottish: Yous (this is possibly used by some Welsh people too, and expat borderites like myself who are nostalgic for a culture they have but dabbled their toes in.)

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