🚀 go-pugleaf

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

On Tue, 05 Apr 94 19:17:44 BST C Malte Lewan writes:

>But in American English, it has become more and more obvious that this
>is a limitation. "You guys" is more and more common when talking to
>more than one person. I have found myself adressing two people with
>"you" and they wonder whom I talked to. I have to learn to say "you
>guys" again.


Is it _really_ a limitation? And is not `you guys' equally limited?
What would you use for other people that you wouldn't call `guys':
you girls, you gentlemen, you ladies, you queens, you boys, you
senior citizens, you gentlewomen, you fags, you androgynous-looking
creatures-that-I-cannot-make-up-my-mind-as-to-your-gender?
`You all' is also limited and does not correspond exactly to the
plural form of `you'. The plural `you' may include two or more people
but not necessarily `all'. In a general context, this y'all form is
imprecise.

Also, in Britain this `y'all' form and `you guys' even more are considered
americanisms that are not of much help -- they are regarded as junk
culture kind of thing, like `not!', a loose Amurrican-movie way of
speaking. No offence intended. I think there are advantages and
disadvantages either way:

(1) The possibility of having `y'all' and `you' to ascertain the
plural from the singular prescinds of the possibility of an ambiguous
option, where either the number of persons is unknown of is better
left undisclosed. In this case, if it is wished to use `you' that
might lead to the misleading conclusion that it is singular.

(2) Using only `you' as in the standard usage, it is possible to
be both ambiguous and precise when necessary by adding a little
context... the idea of a context is somehow for many Americans
unnecessary ornamentation, but this can be _very_ short and precise:
e.g. you two, the three of you, all of you, you lot, etc...
That should do it, shouldn't it. Why standarize something as
dreadful as y'all?

>Concerning Basque, isn't there also some combination of words that
>are more and more commonly used together to indicate gender in third
>person singular? I can imagine that in the long run, this becomes
>very practical and that such a 'feature' is natural, just like it
>has shown that a common "you" for both singular and plural in English
>not is very natural/unpractical.
>
>Making differences between he and she, I think, ought to make the
>sentences shorter because you don't have to describe an otherwise
>sometimes unnecessary context to let your full message get through.


Just like it is the case with `they', `he/she' are represented by
the same word `hura' (or `hark') regardless of gender. I cannot
think of any instance where I've found `they' to be confusing.
I don't think that adding a context is such a dramatic thing to
specify the gender of he/she whenever that is relevant. Quite often
this is either understood or a name or some little information
can make that clear in case it is not desirable to leave all
possibilities open.
All English-speaking people I have heard talking about this
issue feel _very_ uncomfortable about `he/she' not being
differentiated whereas they totally forget that `they' is
ambiguous too. Peculiarly enough, no one wishes a gender distinction
in the form `you'. Why not? What determines that a gender
specification is relevant only in some cases?
We just wish to find in other languages those resources that are
so characteristic to our tongue/s, so no English-speaking person will
expect to find a gender-dependent form for `you'. Funnily enough,
Basque has this form:

(a) hik egin duk  (you did it --masculine)
(b) hik egin dun  (you did it --feminine)

although `hik' (or `hi' intransitive) does not indicate the gender of
the agent, the auxiliary verb does. The more elegant/polite
& perhaps, prevailing form is:

(c) zuk egin duzu (you did it --genderless)

(this traditionally corresponds to `Ihr',`Vous', `Usted' -- a type of
_formal_ `you', whereas `hi/hik' is an analogue of the old English
`thou'). The genderless form `zu/zuk' is now of widespread use
and very few people (mostly v. informally) use `hi/hik'.

Agur benhur,  Mikel.