Quote Originally Posted by Timekeeper View Post
@Martyr
Wasn't there a similar issue here quite some time ago with the use of 'you'?
Originally 'you' was plural, but over time the language evolved and you became both plural and singular (replacing thou), right?

Could get around the whole problem without making any grammatical changes by rephrasing the sentence? "I'm going to miss you like a children miss their blankets."
The second person singular is still correct English, but nobody uses it anymore--methinks were it taught today, people would be too lazy to learn the difference between the nominative and genitive case and just refer to everyone perpetually in the plural.

I'd actually like to see the second-person singular come back into vogue in English. Its elimination has led to such abominations as "y'all" when people try to create a new word for the second-person plural because they're already using the correct term to mean singular, which is wrong. There is no other language on Earth has a distinction between singular and plural for absolutely every concept except second-person references and it's skullsmurfingly retarded.

I can see scrapping the difference between nominative and genitive case -- as long as you're willing to do the same for every existing nominative/genitive pair in the English language that we take for granted, such as I/me, we/us, and they/them. Wait, you say you know which of those terms to use intuitively? Well, if people would stop ignoring the difference between thee and thou, you'd be able to do the same with them. I can, an I choose to speak thus.

In French (and some other languages, including Ukrainian), the distinction between singular and plural in the second person also serves a dual purpose: denotation of formality. I think it would be useful to have that in English too. I could say thee and thou to my friends, making an expression of comfort and familiarity with them inherent to the smurfing language, and you to arseholes and strangers who I don't like (or, alternatively, to be polite). It could be used to identify the tenor of national and regional cultures between the English-speaking world, too. As an example, in France, people use vous damn near as often as we use you, dropping to tu only amongst their closest acquaintances, but in Quebec it's "tu-toi tous les temps!" as a visiting Frenchman once put it. That gives an instant verbal cue, as soon as someone opens their mouth and says damn near anything, that Quebec is a hell of a lot more informal than France is. Also, rude enough to say "tu" to a stranger.