The cartoonist Roz Chast complains that English lacks a plural you. In a strip that Chast posted on Instagram, she rejects the usual options, you guys, youse, y’all, and yinz, and in the closing panel she writes, “Dear Whom: It has come to my attention that his lack of a plural ‘you’ is VERY VERY VERY annoying.” Her final plea will resonate with many readers: “Somebody needs to fix this because I’m sick of it.”
There’s good news for Ms. Chast and for everyone else complaining about the absence of plural you: you is already plural. The real problem is there’s no singular you.
You began life as a plural pronoun. You is still plural. And with any luck, you will remain plural despite the fact that so many of you insist it’s singular.
Here’s what happened. In olden times—and I mean very olden, like around the 5th century olden, when undocumented Germanic immigrants came to England in small boats and imposed their language on unsuspecting Celts—English (or anglisc or whatever it was called back then) had two second person pronouns: singular ƿu and plural ʒeow. Eventually the English learned to spell, and these pronouns became singular thou and plural you.
But then someone decided, “Hey, who needs two pronouns when one will do?” and around Shakespeare’s time people started saying you for both the plural and the singular. Nobody knows exactly why. Pronouns change.
But every time English changes, some grumpy person decides the language is going to hell and he or she or they must put a stop to that. So in 1660, George Fox, better known as the founder of the Society of Friends (the Quakers), wrote a whole book railing against singular you. Fox called anyone using you instead of thou an idiot and a fool.
Most people paid no attention to Fox’s objections. They were too busy using singular you. Yet for two centuries, grammar books continued to teach that thou was the second-person singular, and you (or ye, which got pushed out by the new all-purpose you), the plural, because when did grammar books ever reflect the language people actually use?
So teachers expected students to write thou on grammar tests, even though students were using singular you when their teachers weren’t looking, and the teachers used singular you when the students weren’t around.
Singular thou, thee, and thy didn’t die out completely. They continue to be used in some English dialects, where they reflect both geography and social status. Here’s an example. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), D. H. Lawrence has Mellors, the gamekeeper, use tha when he’s in bed with Lady Chatterley, while she uses singular you to him. Because in England, the words you use reflect your social class, even during sex.
And we still use thou, thee, and thy today in standard English, but only to sound old fashioned.
Here’s the thing, though: you being both singular and plural makes for ambiguity. Someone says you and you may well ask, “Are you talking to me?” Or, “Are you talking to us?” To avoid that ambiguity we could develop a new, specifically singular, you. Like, “Excuse me you-one-person please pass the salt.” Or, “You-non-plural only live once.” Or “You-one-and-nobody-else are driving me batty.”
Instead, English speakers today tend to think of you as basically singular, so instead we develop these specifically-plural you forms like you guys, youse, y’all, and yinz. Which people then complain about.
So instead of finding a new singular you or a new plural you, maybe we need to invent a whole new set of second person singular and plural pronouns. You’re welcome to come up with suggestions. Yes, I'm talking to you.
But coining new pronouns could lead to a whole new set of problems. Over the past few years, red states have banned gender, and in the name of free speech they’ve been busy banning pronouns like he, she, they, hir, and xie because these words have something to do with gender. To solve their gender problem, some far-right grammar critics want to get rid of pronouns altogether. At any rate, conservatives hate pronouns, and inventing new second-person pronouns will drive them crazy. Of course, that might not be such a bad thing.
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Want to learn more about pronouns? Check out my book, What's your pronoun? Beyond he and she. Want to learn more about free speech? Check out You can't always say what you want: The paradox of free speech.
