A HISTORY OF “YOU” “Using a plural to address a single person was once reserved

A HISTORY OF “YOU”

“Using a plural to address a single person was once reserved for the very highborn, but made its way down the social ladder until any social superior was to be addressed with you. It didn’t stop there, though, as vous and Sie did. Instead, having once crowded out ye, you now edged out thou in the early modern period.

To recap: you began as as objective, then became usable in subject position too. Then it went from plural only to singular too. Then it went from formal use to informal use too. Ye, thou and thee (the objective form of thou) were all left behind in the history books. Quite the conquering pronoun. Good job, you.”

(From The Economist)