Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
i am (rather lazily) campaigning to bring back the use of 2 distinct forms of "you" in english (singular / informal vs. plural / formal).  |
Sorry, this will be
.
You know the big issue with that. I am pretty sure that to most native speakers of English "thou" sounds formal, whereas the (historically formal) "you" is the more colloquial one.
A reversal I believe due to the fact that "thou" died out on account of having become nothing short of thoroughly offensive. So, with few exceptions, our main surviving examples of English that uses "thou" is from previous to that period, and we therefore associate "thou" with a sense of archaism (and make the leap therefrom to formality).
I think.