#non-perscriptive

[mathew-comics]

[mathew-comics]

more collage!

[thenonesenseofladypole]

I got myself in something of a tizz the other day.

I don't even remember why but I came across one of these people speaking with the derisory venom of a latin teacher snorting at a kid with ADHD who had secretly taught himself Nahuatl but greeted his teacher: "salvete" about the use of the English word "youse" (plural pronoun, second person).

"It's not a real word",  "It shows appalling ignorance of English grammar", "are these people not literate?".   Yes, some of this was done ironically, but some was done totally and unashamedly unironically, to which I now direct my tired and jaded derision.

The 'ignorance' whinge is what annoys me most - betraying, as it does, ignorance the usual evolution of language, the norms of other European languages, of the history of the English language, and after all that probably the meaning of the word ignorance.  

Firstly - languages evolve to simplify (for ease of use) and to remove ambiguity.  There is an argument to be made that adding more words in makes a language unduly complicated, but it doesn't stand if the word or structure is offering clarity that otherwise wouldn't exist.  Youse does this perfectly.  When speaking to one member of a group about the group, "you" cannot tell them when the individual or the group is mentioned; hence the usual use of "you; Simon" and "you; everyone".  However youse, as a separate plural clears this up nicely.  Variations of this (sometimes w/o the e at the end) exist all over the English speaking world, from here in the UK, to Australia, the USA and Canada.  

Second - it is usual in most European languages to have a second person plural pronoun.  Often this is also the formal case (as with Vouz or Sibh), but as it happens not in English.  Such a tool exists in the Celtic, Latin, Slavic and elsewhere in the Germanic branches (German, one of our closest cousin-tongues has three: du (you), ihr (youse) and Sie (you [formal], making it even more specific and richer, if still, unfortunately, German. ... {Sorry German folks, love youse, just a bit of banter.  Keep up the awesome words like 'sitzpinkler' and how you drink drink and eat eat ( or food food)).  Archaically there existed "thou" and "ye" in most usual dialects (both are well attested in shakespeare to which the common garden pedant will rarely direct their criticism).  The distinction only fell away in the certain dialects that standardisation was pinned to.  

And thirdly - what it all really comes down do.  'Youse' is a word in the usual sense we mean that.  People use it normally and naturally in order to effectively communicate to others.  Everyone who hears it understands it, and everyone who says it is understood.  It is most commonly said and understood in Scotland, the north of England and Ireland, and in places to which there have been large levels of emigration from these places.  

So the lesson I'd like certain people to take from this is that when to be pedantic you are inclined, and haughty superiority infects your mind, make sure what you decry has, to the tongue, exactly no use

or youse may ask mine arse