No 99 on my list of “things that shouldn’t bother me, but they do” is the fact that the English language has no second person plural pronoun (SPPP) and that “you” is used interchangeably.
Before you (plural, hopefully) dismiss this as a #middleclassproblem, let me assure you that it is not. It is a genuine linguistic affliction that causes confusion and imbues our everyday speech with a clumsiness and imprecision that can be maddening.
I am not the first person to get that this is a problem. Language geeks are venting their spleen all over the world wide web about this very issue. Now I believe a solution is needed once and for all.
Standard Modern English is unusual in that it doesn’t have the distinction. In many European languages, there are even lines drawn between the formal and informal SPPP. In Spanish, for example, it’s tu when you’re having a one-to-one with your mate and vosotros when chatting to your amigos; usted when talking to your bank manager, but ustedes for a gaggle of them.
We used to distinguish between thou and thee (singular); ye and you (plural). Many regional dialects still retain these archaic distinctions in their everyday speech, including those in parts of Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lincolnshire.
So when and how did “you” become a catch-all pronoun?
For an expert opinion, I consulted Dr Mel Evans, a lecturer in English language at the University of Birmingham. She said: “You became associated with ‘polite society’ from the end of Elizabeth I’s reign. It was this same ‘polite society’ that was largely responsible for the codification of Standard English in the following centuries, and it was their variety of English that was fixed and prescribed and taught in schools.”
The distinguished 20th-century linguist Otto Jespersen believed that the loss of the SPPP was rather a good thing, noting that English was the only European language to get rid of what he called a “useless distinction”.
Now I’m going to hazard a guess and say that Jesperson never had to mobilise two under-10s on the school run, as I have to every morning. If he did, I’m sure that he wouldn’t be championing this linguistic nuance and ambiguity. Let me assure you that nuance and ambiguity, where the school run is concerned, can only end with you crying into a bottle of gin by 10am.
“Get your shoes on, you – no, not you, I can see you’ve already got yours on – you, yes you, the pair of you, hurry up.”
Now do you see why I am so desperate for that vital bit of clarity that an SPPP would give me? Standard British English doesn’t provide the answer, but in the southern states of the US, they’ve got around it by using “y’all” (you all).
Here, the nearest we have to a solution is “you lot”, but it’s difficult to use without sounding as if you’re about to punch the recipients in the face and it only really works if you preface it with an “oi”.
In my native Essex and on Merseyside, you’re most likely to hear “youse”, while Geordies and Glaswegians prefer “yiz”.
My husband, who is infinitely posher than me, winces whenever someone says “youse”; but I think the yousers have got it right. Why should we make do with this linguistic ambiguity and persist with a grammatical anomaly?
When Shakespeare, Milton or Dickens didn’t have a word to describe something, they invented one, and our language is all the richer and more beautiful for it. So instead of lauding those who put up with the limitations of Standard English, let’s back-slap those who have broken free of this collective inertia and found their own solution.
However, while I’m all for regional variations and dialects, I feel that we do need something set in stone on this one. So please, whoever it is who’s in charge of Standard English, youse lot really need to sort it out.
