From Booksmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.
I'm John McWhorter, and you know, it's time for us to do you.
I'm referring to the pronoun you.
It's a funny, funny thing,
and I'd like to delve a little bit into what a funny thing it is and what it tells us about ourselves.
In other words, what you tells us about you, so to speak.
And what I refer to is this.
I, we.
He, she, it, they.
You there, you all there.
You and you.
That's the way a language is supposed to be, we think, because of course,
you know, English is the language of God, but it isn't.
It's one of 7,000 languages.
And for us, Singular you and plural you feels like Wheaties,
but no. Think about how odd that actually is.
What other language do you know where the word for you in the singular and the word for you in the plural,
so to speak, are the same thing?
Notice you have to unlearn that the minute you go to any other language.
So if you go to French, well, it's du in the singular and vous in the plural.