[Ads-l] Apparently brainless reporting on alternative 3rd person pronouns

[Laurence Horn]

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 2:13 PM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I exchanged three e-mails with the writer of the article, Kristen Johanson.
> 
> She said that she spoke with “MANY professionals” about the issue and that she did the article for the first International Pronoun Day.
> 
> I asked: So are they using “thou” to mean “you” or something else? That’s the issue I (we) don’t understand.
> 
> She responded: ​Possibly as something else.  Basically, they are playing with different words to see what fits, since the idea is very new to mainstream English (or American, more specifically) language.
> 
> Without evidence, it seems most likely to me that “thou” is just experiencing a revival as a second-person pronoun, though Johanson sees it differently. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou#More_recent_uses <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou#More_recent_uses> for recent and current usage.)

This wiki entry seems a bit obtuse at times.  When Leonard Cohen uses “thee” in the cited line from “Bird on the Wire", I would imagine he’s doing it mostly for the rhyme, especially since he uses “you” elsewhere in the song (sometimes motivated by rhyme, sometimes not):

Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
Like a worm on a hook
Like a knight from some old-fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee
If I, if I have been unkind

I hope that you can just let it go by
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you
For like a baby, stillborn
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee

I seem to recall other songwriters (and poets?) using “thee” for the same reason (possibly for the same “me”/“thee” rhyme), although I can’t think of specific examples off the top of my head.  

Then, as the entry sort of suggests, there’s the motivation of self-conscious archaism for "thou”/“thee”/“thy”/“thine", especially to provide a vivid contrast with contemporary slang elsewhere in the immediate vicinity, as in the Rodgers-Hart standard:

   Thou swell! Thou witty!
   Thou sweet! Thou grand!
   Wouldst kiss me pretty?
   Wouldst hold my hand?
   Both thine eyes are cute too;
   What they do to me.
   Hear me holler 
   I choose a sweet lollapaloosa in thee.

In any case, I agree that there’s nothing in the wiki-entry or elsewhere that points to a third-person use.

LH
> 
> 
>> On 17 Oct 2018, at 07:31, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>> 
>> It’s just basic ecology.  We have a demand for a gender-unspecified third person singular pronoun, and we have this leftover supply of unused second person singular pronouns, so why not recycle and repurpose that inventory?  Not that I can imagine a given English speaker actually doing so, but thou might surprise me.  
>> 
>>> On Oct 17, 2018, at 2:46 AM, Mark Mandel <mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>> 
>>> WTF???
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Am I missing something here, or is the business about archaic 2nd person
>>> singular pronouns totally irrelevant?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> https://kywnewsradio.radio.com/articles/news/how-gender-identity-and-some-old-english-come-together-international-pronoun-day
>>> 
>>> 
>>> October 25, 2018
>>> *How gender identity and some 'old English' come together on International
>>> Pronoun Day*
>>> Kristen Johanson
>>> October 16, 2018 - 10:05 pm
>>> 
>>> PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- Wednesday is the inaugural International
>>> Pronoun Day, designed to make people more concious of everyday speech, and
>>> to respect others' gender identity.
>>> 
>>> *Words like thou, thy and thee are making a comeback, for those who do not
>>> identify as male or female.*
>>> 
>>> "We do revert back to that old English because it is something where we
>>> evolved from," said Nyk Robertson is Associate Director of Gender and
>>> Sexuality initiatives at Swarthmore College.
>>> 
>>> Mark Mandel
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org