You

You (stressed /ˈjuː/; unstressed /jə/) is the second-person personal pronoun in Modern English. Ye was the original nominative form; the oblique/objective form is you (functioning originally as both accusative and dative), and the possessive is your or yours. In standard English, you is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural, such as you are. This was not always so. Early Modern English dis... more

You (stressed /ˈjuː/; unstressed /jə/) is the second-person personal pronoun in Modern English. Ye was the original nominative form; the oblique/objective form is you (functioning originally as both accusative and dative), and the possessive is your or yours. In standard English, you is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural, such as you are. This was not always so. Early Modern English distinguished between the plural you and the singular thou. This distinction was lost in modern English due to the importation from France of a Romance linguistic feature which is commonly called the T-V distinction. This distinction made the plural forms more respectful and deferential; they were used to address strangers and social superiors. This distinction ultimately led to familiar thou becoming obsolete in standard English, although this did not happen in other languages such as French. Because thou is now seen primarily in literary... less