Talk:Grammatical person

Ye, thee, and you

Because I am not an expert I will raise the issue but defer to another to actually make the change. I believe that the correct archaic 2nd person singular (aka second person informal) is "thee". "You", on the other hand, is the archaic 2nd person plural which has become the modern catch-all.

Unrelated to the first, but still important for credibility: The apparent "y" in "ye" is an artifact of the printing/lettering practice of the day and that the proper spelling was then, as now, "t-h-ee". Based on the citations below I feel it is appropriate to change the spelling on the main page. (Though technically wikipedia does support the thorn character ("þ"), which created this whole mess in the first place, if anyone is feeling adventurous and wants to restore ye to its proper glory.)

Thee=2nd person singular/intimate:

• http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thee

Ye=Thee:

• http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/11/12/31017/737
• http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ye

--76.21.252.107 08:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

That's correct, but it's already mentioned in the current article, and in the article on Thou ("thee" is the objective form, and "thou" was the subjective form of the pronoun). FilipeS 16:44, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I think thou should be removed from the table, because as it stands I immediately wonder "why isn't it marked informal"? But that is just my european bias. Then I wonder why "ye" isn't there too, since archaic "you" was "ye" in the nominative, and then I realize what a can of worms this opesn up right there in the table before any coverage could clarify. — robbiemuffin ^{page talk} 00:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is 'one' correct?

he, she, one or it is (third-person singular)

'One' is archaically used to refer to one's self, and so surely is first person? Have I got this wrong? Or am i right and the article is wrong? Saccerzd 17:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Haha, Ransom notes...that's rich.

Yes, it is indeed. :-) Shinobu 16:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Lol! Good one. Pretty good example too. But seriously, I don't think "shopping list" is a very good example of First Future. A shopping list is usually just the actual list of items, implicitly saying "I will buy" (first future) but usually not explicit. I can't really think of a common type of document which does explicitly use "I will". —EatMyShortz 15:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• How about New Years' Resolutions, as an example of first person future tense? (e.g. "I will lose 10 pounds this year") --Gothhenge 20:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes! Good idea! (Do you want to put it up?) —EatMyShortz 13:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

This should be the default page

... not the dance troupe.

changed several things in the videogame section; question about second-person

Overall, the videogames section was heavily biased towards shooters: in fact, nearly all games not played from the first person perspective, from platformers to sports games to fighting games, have a third-person camera perspective, not just "adventure games like Reisdent Evil." I thus removed the example reference to Resident Evil, since it is no more third-person than the other dozens of thousands of games out there. Along these same lines, in games featuring firearms the switch to first-person perspective is indeed often to improve weapon accuracy - but again, this is biased towards shooting games and ignores platformers and other action-adventure games, where the first-person perspective can improve spatial awareness (indeed, the same thing that was said about noticing the player's location in a generally FPS, and so I combined them).

Also, I wanted to ask about the second-person in movies and videogames. I'd tend to disagree that second-person is simply the first-person of the antagonist. In literature, if the novel is suddenly written from the first-person perspective of the bad guy, woudl you say it is written in second-person? My guess is that you would not. Second-person is when the reader is treated as a character by the use of words like "you." Thus, isn't what we call "first-person" in movies and videogames actually second-person? Perhaps the answer is because, for instance, the space marine in Doom does not actually refer to the player as "you." So would a game like Black and White, where the cursor you move on the screen is supposed to be the player's actual hand, or those dating sims from Japan, where you actually play as yourself, qualify as second-person? I'm just wondering here, I'm sure there's some explanation, so please enlighten me :P.

Why is the detail on video games in here anyway? This is grammatical person. I suggest that those details be moved to another article or created in their own. It does kinda--you know--takes out the professionalism of the article. Someone needing help for their English paper comes here and sees video games. Yeah... Colonel Marksman 21:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Moved. FilipeS 23:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• My fault, a couple of years back there were a lot of links to this article from games regarding third-person, first-person, etc. etc. so it wound up appearing here. Sockatume 00:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I smell a little bit of US-centricism

Why include Y'all, which is almost exclusively used in the southern US(as far as I know), and not include Youse which has a far more widespread (although possibly not as common) usage? Can anyone shed some light on this? I decided not to add "youse" without saying this first, because I thought it would probably get deleted without much though given to it. Meh. Elkrobber 22:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a more specific artice with more information, English personal pronouns. FilipeS 22:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Is "Youse" used outside of the US? I thought it was specific to the New England area.69.242.85.126 (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Short, not enough

This article is almost (basically is) a stub. The meaty information on this pages barely covers the bones. Someone agree it needs expanding? Colonel Marksman 21:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

second/first what is it called when the speaker is also the addressee?

Hungarian and other languages

I know Hungarian has a sexless 3rd person pronoun. It would be interesting to explore more deeply pronouns in other languages.

71.240.234.100 18:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added some links to the article. FilipeS 19:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

'They' (and equivalently 'their') is starting to be used as an gender-indeterminate 3rd person, in a similar way that the amsculaine used to be used to encompass the feminine.

Eg. I don't know who left the gifts, but I am most gratefull to them.

Does this want mentioning? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brondahl (talk • contribs) 00:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Personal pronouns in the objective case?

This article ignores "me," "us," "them," etc. I'm not sure these apply to the article, as the subject usually determines the grammatical person; however, the indication that "all other pronouns" indicate "third person" is incorrect. Thoughts? 69.242.85.126 (talk) 21:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right. I've rephrased the article a bit. See what you think of it now. FilipeS (talk) 21:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Better factual presentation. Thanks, FilipeS. I'm still not sure how to describe a sentence like "He licked me" or "He licked my nose" (both first person), though. 69.242.85.126 (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Gender-Neutral Third Person Singular

I don't believe that 'They' is properly used as gender-neutral third person singular. The proper gender-neutral third person singular is 'He' or the awkward 'He or She' that political correctness has thrust upon us. 'They' is widely used as a gender-neutral third person singular, but is improper.Capt3 (talk) 17:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

What is improper about it? This usage has always sounded natural to me, and far less clumsy than "he/she". 82.41.88.196 (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Simply, 'They' is plural. It is improper to use 'They' in the singular. I know it is commonly done in speech, but it is a mistake that was simply not tolerated in an formal composition in college, starting with Comp 101. 'He' is both masculine third person singular, and gender-neutral third person singular.Capt3 (talk) 00:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

True, "They" is plural, not singular. It means 2 or more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.88.4.78 (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)