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

[Dan Goncharoff]

Just a reminder: Thou Swell was written for A Connecticut Yankee, and is
meant to be taking place at the time of King Arthur's court.

On Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 2:48 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> > 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
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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