Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
Everyone used to say all sorts of things that are unacceptable now. This isn't a good justification.
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And
Thy Thou Thee
Quote:
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Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you fret
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C.f I and me as to why it was Ye at the start and You at the end, or old use of thee and thou for singular.
Thy (singular), Yours (plural)
See also They, Them, Theirs and She / Her and He / Him as well as hers and his.
What I don't know is how thy/thou/thee became you/ye. (singular) and you/youse (plural) particularly in parts of Ireland and Scotland.
Old English was developed by the Anglo Saxons by the 7th C. from their Western Germanic language. It displaced the Celtic Language in England (Angles Land), but not entirely in Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man and Cornwall. Irish started to be displaced by the Irish wanting better status by knowing English in 17th C.
Welsh (Anglo-Saxon) and Gaelic are actually non-Celtic (Celt = Keltoi) words for Foreigner.
The Normans (1066 and all that) changed the spelling and made it more French
Thus Cwen (Kween) became Queen.
Cyning (Kining) became King.
Pork, Duck, Mutton, Beef were added.
Dutch Prince William of Orange married King James's (different English & Scottish number) daughter Mary and invaded. Joint Monarchs from
1689, though technically only Mary should have been Monarch. Curiously not much Dutch was adopted. By then English was quite modern.
Gothic Literature was invented in 1764 by Horace Walpole and English was certainly modern then.
Before the OED
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary there was Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, which like Webster was prescriptive. Finished 1755. The earliest English dictionary was about 1604.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dict...glish_Language
The OED aims to document, not prescribe. No-one is in charge of English.