Give examples of words that English is missing

american nic, "ye" was originally the second person plural nominative, which got replaced in most dialects with "you", its accusative counterpart. However, some dialects did retain it, for one reason or another, as the second person plural, even though those dialects "you" became the second person singular, dialects which do retain "thou" notwithstanding. What would be interesting is to see how such a state of affairs came to be, since the normal pattern was for "you" to become both nominative and accusative, and then to in turn replace the corresponding second person singular forms; hence, for "you" to become second person singular nominative and accusative, and yet for "ye" to be *retained* in the plural, the normal sequence of events could not have happened here.

My guess is that in this case, the informal singular use of "you" spread directly from dialects which it had already been established in both singular and plural forms to such "ye"-preserving dialects, *without* the initial event of the second person plural accusative replacing the second person plural nominative. Later on, in such dialects, there could have been the replacement of the second person plural accusative "you" with the second person plural nominative "ye", which would help form a stronger contrast with the second person singular nominative and accusative "you".

Sander and Travis,

At the start of two 16 Aug messages the addressees respectively wrote:
"Well excuse me for saying this but that case you're a morron."; and
"Geoff_One, you are a f...king idiot".
These openings to the two messages do not quite follow from what went before. We have a scenario in which someone espoused that it seemed fine to use "thou" for you (singular). It would be accurate and appropriate to label this as eccentric, but disjointed and reactionary to label it as morronic and/or idiotic.

Geoff_One, the reason for the said responses to your posts is that their contact is completely out of touch with the nature of English today, one way or another. To claim that the "real" second person singular is "thou", and that the actual second person plural should be specifically "you", has very little to do with modern English, where "thou" has died out outside of archaic language in the vast majority of dialects, and where many dialects have innovated new forms to replace "you" as the second person plural in informal speech. Even the vast majority of formal/literary English today is not in concordance with your statement, and in such "you" is used for both the second person singular and the second person plural practically as a rule, constructions like "all of you" to clearly specify the second person plural aside.

In my above post "is that their content is completely out of touch" is meant instead of "is that their contact is completely out of touch".

Geoff_One,

Again, it is impossible.No English speaker, in this age, says 'Thou' or ' Thee'.English has 'lost' these and now 'you singular' is used.

Like I said before don't make your language more than it is.Next thing you're going to tell me is that you still uses multiple genders in everyday speech.

Too many "Rs"! ;-).....sorry to be a moron pointing this out.
One of the big problems in English is the use (or otherwise) of double letters. A good example is the word "accommodation". My guess is that about 80% of native speaking people only use one "m".

Isn't it a beautifull sumer day? I fel like geting the hel out of the ofice and takking to the hils. :-)

<<Again, it is impossible.No English speaker, in this age, says 'Thou' or ' Thee'.English has 'lost' these and now 'you singular' is used.>>

Sander, that is not absolutely true. It would be true to state that almost every English dialect has lost these features. I'm not familiar enough with British dialects to say that 'thou' and 'thee' are or are not used in the UK anywhere, but I am fairly familiar with some variations of a North American dialect that does still use them. Some forms of Newfoundland English do preserve the use of 'thee', 'thou', and 'ye' for that matter. 'Thee' and 'Thou' are not common in all forms of Newfoundland English. They are normally found in small isolated fishing towns called 'outports'.

There are probably many other 'archaic' words that are still used by some dialect or another.

Kazoo,

Please read Travis' posts,they explain everything.

Question for you, when you learned English,when you learned English what did you learn to use for 'you singular'? Thou/thee or you?!

If you answered 'you', then why do you think you didn't learn to use 'thou/thee'? :)

Sander,

Travis' posts having nothing at all to do with what my last post was trying to say to you. You said "No English speaker, in this age" uses 'thee' or 'thou'. All I'm saying is that is not true. I'm not trying to pick on you by pointing out that you assumed wrong, I'm just pointing it out because it is wrong. There is no need to get upset, I'm not trying to start a fight.

As for your questions. I learned to use 'you'. The reason for that (I know this, not just think it), is because the dialect of English I speak no longer uses 'thee' or 'thou'. I'm not sure what either of your questions have to do with my last post, but there are your answers.

Kazoo,

Travis wrote:

''"ye" was originally the second person plural nominative, which got replaced in most dialects with "you", its accusative counterpart. However, some dialects did retain it, for one reason or another, as the second person plural, even though those dialects "you" became the second person singular, ''

''the reason for the said responses to your posts is that their contact is completely out of touch with the nature of English today, one way or another. To claim that the "real" second person singular is "thou", and that the actual second person plural should be specifically "you", has very little to do with modern English, where "thou" has died out outside of archaic language in the vast majority of dialects, and where many dialects have innovated new forms to replace "you" as the second person plural in informal speech. Even the vast majority of formal/literary English today is not in concordance with your statement, and in such "you" is used for both the second person singular and the second person plural practically as a rule, constructions like "all of you" to clearly specify the second person plural aside. ''

<I'm not looking for a fight either ;)>

Further Explanation for an Interest in "Thou" etc.

I have seen it written within this forum that the closest language to English in terms of vocabularly is French and the closest language to English in terms of structure/grammar is Frisian. In regard to state languages, the closest in terms of structure/grammar is Dutch. Credit to the provider of this information. I have also read that a native English speaker without any Dutch language experience is going to find Dutch like gobblydegook. Ditto French. This would therefore appear to mean that a monolingual native English speaker is going to miss out on experiences such as those that are attainable by (monolingual) native Portuguese speakers who encounter people speaking the relatively similar Spanish. Ditto ... native Dutch speakers ... German. Etc. Say there is
a monolingual native English speaker who has just read about these type of language encounters, becomes impatient and therefore seeks an early insight into these types of language encounters. All is not lost, if one digs below first appearances- this insight maybe achieved by looking at some "Middle English" texts. "Middle English" contains thou/thow, amongst other differences to Modern English, thus the contemporary interest in "thou".

Further To The Previous Message,

If one reads a lot of "Middle English" in order to try and attain a small insight into what Dutch - German language encounters etc maybe like, one may self-program one's self to occasionally use "thou" in conversations.

=>the closest in terms of structure/grammar is Dutch. Credit to the provider of this information. I have also read that a native English speaker without any Dutch language experience is going to find Dutch like gobblydegook.<=

In many cases German is much closer to English than Dutch.Dutch might have superfacial similarities with Germanic based words, pronounciation is one of the weirdest in the world.

<You can communicate well with your English, but not perfectly well. >

I can communicate perfectly well with 'my' English, thank you very much.

Everyone can communicate better in their native language than in a foreign one. Obviously you can express yourself much better in Swedish than English - that doesn't mean that Swedish is 'better' than English. As English supposedly has the largest vocabulary of any language in the world, I don't think there should be too many communication problems!

=>Obviously you can express yourself much better in Swedish than English<=

What?Who said this?

Secondly, English might have the largest vocabulary this doesn't exactly means that people use the entire vocabulary! LOL