OBS. 30.--With the familiar form of the second person singular, those who constantly put you for thou can have no concern; and many may think it unworthy of notice, because Murray has said nothing about it: others will hastily pronounce it bad English, because they have learned at school some scheme of the verb, which implies that this must needs be wrong. It is this partial learning which makes so much explanation here necessary. The formation of this part of speech, form it as you will, is central to grammar, and cannot but be very important. Our language can never entirely drop the pronoun thou, and its derivatives, thy, thine, thee, thyself, without great injury, especially to its poetry. Nor can the distinct syllabic utterance of the termination ed be now generally practised, except in solemn prose. It is therefore better, not to insist on those old verbal forms against which there are so many objections, than to exclude the pronoun of the second person singular from all such usage, whether familiar or poetical, as will not admit them. It is true that on most occasions you may be substituted for thou, without much inconvenience; and so may we be substituted for I, with just as much propriety; though Dr. Perley thinks the latter usage "is not to be encouraged."--Gram., p. 28. Our authors and editors, like kings and emperors, are making we for I their most common mode of expression. They renounce their individuality to avoid egotism. And when all men shall have adopted this enallage, the fault indeed will be banished, or metamorphosed, but with it will go an other sixth part of every English conjugation. The pronouns in the following couplet are put for the first person singular, the second person singular, and the second person plural; yet nobody will understand them so, but by their antecedents:
"Right trusty, and so forth--we let you to know We are very ill used by you mortals below."--Swift.
OBS. 31.--It is remarkable that some, who forbear to use the plural for the singular in the second person, adopt it without scruple, in the first. The figure is the same in both; and in both, sufficiently common. Neither practice is worthy to be made more general than it now is. If thou should not be totally sacrificed to what was once a vain compliment, neither should I, to what is now an occasional, and perhaps a vain assumption. Lindley Murray, who does not appear to have used you for thou, and who was sometimes singularly careful to periphrase [sic--KTH] and avoid the latter, nowhere in his grammar speaks of himself in the first person singular. He is often "the Compiler;" rarely, "the Author;" generally, "We:" as, "We have distributed these parts of grammar, in the mode which we think most correct and intelligible."--Octavo Gram., p. 58. "We shall not pursue this subject any further."--Ib., p. 62. "We shall close these remarks on the tenses."--Ib., p. 76. "We presume no solid objection can be made."--Ib., p. 78. "The observations which we have made."--Ib., p. 100. "We shall produce a remarkable example of this beauty from Milton."--Ib., p. 331. "We have now given sufficient openings into this subject."--Ib., p. 334. This usage has authority enough; for it was not uncommon even among the old Latin grammarians; but he must be a slender scholar, who thinks the pronoun we thereby becomes singular. What advantage or fitness there is in thus putting we for I, the reader may judge. Dr. Blair did not hesitate to use I, as often as ho had occasion; neither did Lowth, or Johnson, or Walker, or Webster: as, "I shall produce a remarkable example of this beauty from Milton."--Blair's Rhet., p. 129. "I have now given sufficient openings into this subject."--Ib., p. 131. So in Lowth's Preface: "I believe,"--"I am persuaded,"--"I am sure,"--"I think,"--"I am afraid,"--"I will not take upon me to say."
OBS. 32.--Intending to be critical without hostility, and explicit without partiality, I write not for or against any sect, or any man; but to teach all who desire to know the grammar of our tongue. The student must distinctly understand, that it is necessary to speak and write differently, according to the different circumstances or occasions of writing. Who is he that will pretend that the solemn style of the Bible may be used in familiar discourse, without a mouthing affectation? In preaching, or in praying, the ancient terminations of est for the second person singular and eth for the third, as well as ed pronounced as a separate syllable for the preterit, are admitted to be generally in better taste than the smoother forms of the familiar style: because the latter, though now frequently heard in religious assemblies, are not so well suited to the dignity and gravity of a sermon or a prayer. In grave poetry also, especially when it treats of scriptural subjects, to which you put for thou is obviously unsuitable, the personal terminations of the verb, though from the earliest times to the present day they have usually been contracted and
