MrPedantic
Key Member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2005
- Member Type
- Other
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- England
- Current Location
- England
The change is sociolological/psychological as much as linguistic, but I feel that we have lost more in the area of 'language as a useful sign of relationships' than we have gained in 'language as a pretence that we are all equal'.
And yet the non-use of "thou" significantly predates any "pretence that we are all equal".
You could even say that the pronoun fell into disuse at the very time its distinctions might have seemed most useful (C17/C18: the beginnings of empire and the establishment of the "middle classes").
MrP