Re: Old Norse (was Re: New to the list)

Padraic Brown wrote:

> >And I think she misses
> >her 'usted', poor thing (in Iceland, any single person is "þú", whether s/he
> >is the president, a worker, an infant, or a cat). As regards English, the
> >honorific pronoun has overtaken the normal 'thou' (I know you know that).
>
> Actually no. At best a quasi honorific. Only used when addressing God:
> and that, I think, is only because in Latin he is addressed "tu".
> I.e., a direct translation. If I remember right, there was a
> flirtation in Middle English with honorific pronouns, but it never
> caught on. I think using ye or you as a singular honorific.
No, actually, what he said is right.  "Thou" was always the standard
singular second person pronoun, until sometime around Shakespeare's
time, when "you", formerly only the second person plural, started to be
used for the honorific singular second person.  Eventually, it overtook
it entirely, eliminating the singular/plural distinction.

> In modern English, there is no common equivalent of usted. In court
> you address the judge as "your honour" (I suppose more or less how
> usted / vuestra merced got started), Slick Willie can rightly be
> addressed as "your excellency" - but these aren't really common
> enough, at least in my opinion, to be called pronouns in the way
> usted is.
So it has always been:

    "The first Senate mustered a quorum on April 6, 1789, and
   immediately began debating rules and matters of protocol. It
   was soon to be vigorously, if not ludicrously, presided over
   by John Adams, inaugurated as vice president on April 21.
   Arguing that there were 'no people in the world so much in
   favor of titles as the people of America,' Adams from April
   23 to May 14 led the Senate in a debate over titles for the
   president and other top officials of the government. He
   thought the word president was so commonly used that it
   was undignified by itself, but after several weeks of debate,
   the only title that stuck, temporarily, was the one bestowed
   by Senator Ralph Izard of South Carolina upon the stout vice
   president: 'His Rotundity'."

(<http://www.c-span.org/guide/books/booknotes/chapter/fc021598.htm>)

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: trwier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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