I've been thinking about you. No, not you personally. I mean that I've been thinking about you, the actual word. I can already tell that this might get confusing. You is such a common word that it's difficult to pull back from its everyday usage and discuss it deeply and objectively. However, the very fact that you is used so frequently means that it can offer tremendous insight to those who are willing to discuss it. You has passed over the lips of so many people in so many contexts over so great a time that it touches on nearly every aspect of history, society, and language in the English speaking world. What follows is only a brief introduction to a word that can speak volumes.

You is a pronoun. More specifically, you is a second-person personal pronoun, and it's the only second-person personal pronoun that contemporary English speakers use with frequency. No other word is really necessary for the job; you is incredibly one-size-fits-all. It is singular and plural, nominative and objective, formal and familiar. The subject of an address, when not called by name, is nearly always called you. I'm writing for you, now, and I am able to call you you no matter who you are, simply because it is you that I am addressing. That's the rule.

Many other languages offer a little more variety. French, for example, has two words that translate into English as you. The first of these, tu, can only be used to address one person on a familiar level. The other word, vous, must be used instead of tu when addressing groups of two or more people. Vous can also be used to address one person in a way that conveys additional respect. The English word you offers no such distinctions.

There is also no difference in English between you when it used as the subject of a verb, and you when it is used as the object of a verb (or the object of a preposition). This is quite unlike the situation for the first- and third-person pronouns in English. I, we, he, and she can only be used as subjects. Me, us, him, and her can only be used as objects. You is an exception; it works in either setting.

You was not always used in so many different contexts. Read the rest of this entry »