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Avy, thanks for that post and the poem. I find it interesting that a wide range of languages have this trait of using the 2nd person plural as the polite form of the singular. A couple of follow up questions, if I may:
Do these languages have a word for using the familiar form as French does (tutoyer)?
When and how did English lose the 2nd person singular? Was it through using the plural as a polite form and the English being over polite? . Like the story of the two Englishmen travelling on a train for days in India and not speaking to each other because they hadn't been introduced.
Rod
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