• Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Again, the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a single person, you to one, instead of thou, contrary to the pure, plain, and single language of truth, thou to one, and you to more than one, which had always been used by God to men, and men to God, as well as one to another, from the oldest record of time till corrupt men, for corrupt ends, in later and corrupt times, to flatter, fawn, and work upon the corrupt nature in men, brought in that false and senseless way of speaking you to one, which has since corrupted the modern languages, and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men;—this evil custom I had been as forward in as others, and this I was now called out of, and required to cease from.

    Thomas Ellwood, ca. late 1600s.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 hours ago

      This kind of thinking is exactly what is meant by “prescriptive grammar”. It is, in many ways, not even grammar, at least not in the scientific sense.

      Amusingly enough, modern day prescriptivists would now probably flag Mr. Ellwood for a run-on sentence.