You was there.. ..

Help..!
He was there
She was there
I was there
The above all correct because they are singular.
We were there
They were there
Many were there
The above all correct because they are multiple. *Plural.

So, therefore, “You was there”, becomes correct?

*ETA Plural.

Ugh.

2> This is input?

No, because "you" is plural and singular. English originally had a separate pronoun for the second person singular, "thou", but "you" has replaced it. Hence, "were".

Thank you for that lilithcat. However, when we came to bat this around a bit a couple of nights ago, we felt that because "you" is plural and singular, then “was” and “were” both remain grammatically correct.

It is also difficult to decide if “thou were” or “thou was”.

Yep, #3, It's input, 'cos I found " “You was there”, ugly, and I do think that a feel for your own language is important. If it feels ugly it is probably wrong and incorrect.

Thanks lilithcat (#4) for your more erudite comments! By the way, do you have any suggestions for a (relatively simple) book/web site which explains those "thee/thou/you/thee/thine etc. I know they are just simple grammars from say the 1640's (a guess) but a good book is a treasure :-)

Guido.

I suppose "you was" is okay, if you want to sound like a gangster in some film from the 1940s.

But as Lilithcat said, "you" was originally plural, so it used plural verb forms. When it shifted to become singular as well, it continued to use the plural verb forms, and the singular ones have dropped away. You could use singular with it, but it just doesn't sound right to most native speakers, and so hardly anyone does.

Guido:

Thou = I, he, she
Thee = Me, him, her
Thy/Thine = my/mine, his, her(s)

Thanks 'keri', #7,

Though as a 'completist' I want everything.
Where do I find it?

I do remember studying French 50+ years ago, and trying to learn the various irregular verbs :-(
I remember studying them as a Mathematical pattern (which I didn't understand) well I recon. I have a much better chance of understanding OLD ENGLISH grammar, than I did 'irregular French Verbs'.

Guido.

//As a related aside I recall the use in Yorkshire of "Thou wert".//

#8 Guido, Lynne Truss' book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves has a lot of interesting stuff on usage and grammar.

>6 guido47: Well said Guido. In you come with your "Yep", your “Ugh” and your "'Cos" but you object to something because you feel it sounds ugly.. .. .. ..

>7 keristars: It is not being suggested that you should use these words, it is being asked what is the logical reason why it cannot be grammatically used. Or do you do things just because you're told too? Some of us require good, logical reasoning.

We are supposed to be pedantic here are we not?

Try Charles Barber's Early Modern English.

11> Well, I don't know that there's a logical reason. Grammar isn't always logical. Why are irregular verbs?

Frankly, the reason "you was" isn't grammatical is because it never has been. When "thou" dropped out of usage and was replaced by "you", people just kept up with the plural verb forms instead of switching, because "you" was only used with the plural verbs. And that has continued to be the case (unless you're in a gangster movie from the 1940s).

Sorry keri, but that just wont wash. You cannot claim that something is grammatically incorrect just because it has slipped out of use.
Your poor gentleman may be giving more thought to his grammar (which you have not shown to be incorrect, although many of us would not use it) than you are in criticising him. Therefore, you see him as a gangster ?
You seem to be missing the point here. It cannot be bad grammar just because you don't like it.

Everything said so far seems to confirm that it is correct grammar.

# 14 - I believe that you is assuming that grammar rules are rigid and have no exceptions.

15> If you are saying this case is an exception, please explain.

>13 keristars: ....because "you" was only used with the plural verbs...

That seems to demonstrate quite clearly that "you" can be followed by "was" in a perfectly grammatical sentence!

Listen, my 1940s gangster comment is in reference to the statement I made earlier that when I hear "you was", I think of those films. It is a fairly common usage to indicate a rough guy from the city, not very highly educated, and I've seen several films that use the cliché in recent weeks (boxers also tend to be given this kind of speech pattern).

And I never said that "you was" slipped out of use and is therefore grammatically incorrect. I said that "thou" is no longer used, and "you" took its place, but retained its plural verb forms.

At any rate, "thou" didn't even use "was" or "is" as its conjugation of "to be". All the hymns and whatnot I remember from childhood had "thou art" or "thou wert".

17> thbbbbt!

16> Grammar is mostly about exceptions. If it was mostly logical rules than it wouldn't be so hard to learn.

17> Thank you thorold, I follow your logic.

18> Thank you kiri. You appear to agree with everything in support of "you was there" as acceptable grammar but in an argumentative way. Maybe we need to leave the thee and thou, English has come a long way since then.

19> What.. ??

20> If you are saying this case is an exception, please explain.

No, I don't think "you was there" is acceptable grammar. It sounds off. That is why the characters that are supposed to be crude and poorly educated are the ones saying it. It's supposed to be a signifier that they don't realize that they are using the wrong phrase, and so it sounds wrong to the viewers.

My statement about thee and thou is just to point out that "you were" has always been the right thing. The conjugations "is" and "was" have never been associated with the second-person, so "you was" will have never been correct. When we had a singular second-person pronoun ("thou"), it used "art" and "wert". So if you say "the word 'you' just filled in where 'thou' was", you can't even say "thou is" or "thou was", so it wouldn't be filled in as "you is" or "you was". So it could never have been correct to use those phrases, and anyone who does say "you was there" is showing a lack of familiarity with English grammar (or is speaking in a different English dialect, but I assume that this conversation is about the primary one, so that's a moot point for now).

my #19 was blowing a raspberry at thorold for his pedantry :P

22> Are you quite sure that you do not find difficulty saying "the second person singular were there?"

I believe that there are a number of European languages that use the second person singular in familiar circumstances which are grammatically singular and the second person plural in formal circumstances, singular or plural, or for the plural. All of them that I have seen keep the second person plural agreement even in singular use.

All of what is acceptable goes back to native speakers. The pedants among us prefer the usage of careful, educated speakers. If it sounds off to a careful, educated speaker it probably is off. The dictionaries report usage and do it with various degrees of acceptance of various levels of discourse.

You has been accepted with its verb into educated usage as a singular in the Anglophone world. You are and you were are correct. You is and you was are not correct.

Robert

24> Thanks for your input Mr Durick. All noted.

Are you quite sure that you do not find difficulty saying "the second person singular were there" ?

I didn't understand your question in 23, nor do I understand it now in 25.

Robert

26> You are comfortable saying "you were there." The second person singular is "you".

So.. ..

Are you quite sure that you do not find difficulty saying "the second person singular were there" ?

24: All of what is acceptable goes back to native speakers. The pedants among us prefer the usage of careful, educated speakers. If it sounds off to a careful, educated speaker it probably is off.

Please don't generalise ;)
Non-native speaker here, and I'm much more of a "defender of the correct usage of the English language" than my native colleagues, and I cringe at the amount of spelling/grammar errors I see in work reports, mails, presentations, etc...

#28 My experience would support ScarletBea's findings. I have many non-native English speaking friends and colleagues and many of them get very frustrated with grammatical errors in the spoken and wrtitten English coming from their native English speaking friends and colleagues. I attribute this to the non-native English speakers having been taught English from text books that use correct English while the native speakers, myself included, have fallen into habits that include lazy and slipshod usage of the language.

In relation to the, "if it sounds wrong it must be wrong", argument, I believe this is no longer, and probably should never have been considered to be, sufficient in matters of grammar. It was used in one of the famous grammar reference works (I cannot remember exactly which one) and I would have had a lot of support for it as a rule-of-thumb, but it is only true if one assumes that everyone has grown up and been educated in an environment in which grammatically correct language was prevalent. I have come to a stage in life when I cringe at the errors made by nearly every TV and radio announcer. When I find that even teachers do not recognize a phrase such as, "There's delays", as being wrong, I think about giving up and talking like what they does.

In informal/dialect use, I think the difference between "was" and "were" is sometimes determined more by emphasis than by grammatical number. Speakers might well know which one is officially correct in a given situation, but deliberately use the other one to make their statement stand out more: e.g. if you're contradicting someone who has just said "I wasn't", then "You was!" sounds a lot stronger than "You were!"

Are you quite sure that you do not find difficulty saying "the second person singular were there" ?

I now believe that you are trolling.

No. I do not have trouble with "you(sing.) were there". That's what I've been saying this entire thread. Are you being dense on purpose? "You" uses the plural verb forms no matter if it's referring to just one person or many. That's the way it is in English.

29> But then using textbook English in an informal setting can make you seem out of place, or mark you as a non-native speaker.

31> You accuse me of being there by saying “You were there”. I am singular, therefore you cannot use “were”. “Were” is only grammatically correct if applied to plurals. I am not a plural, I am a singular and thus you must use “was”. If my name is Fred, you would not say "Fred were there."

Because your professor at Uni' always said “you were there” and he was a nice guy, does not automatically mean that it is grammatically correct. Maybe he had not given it as much thought as we are here. It is also possible he heard the king say it and was afraid to correct him, so on it went until it stuck.

“That's the way we have always said it” does not make it grammatically correct here in our pedantic LT thread.

Obviously we are not now going to change the way we use “you were there” wrongly after all this time but do you think that the more enlightened will have to accept that it is not grammatically correct ?

“Were” is only grammatically correct if applied to plurals. I am not a plural, I am a singular and thus you must use “was”.

No.

#32 Your statement is a non sequitur.

As lilithcat (4>) pointed out “You” has both singular and plural applications. It would seen all the more proper and important, therefore, to distinguish them with the appropriate “were” or “was”.

If addressing a group of persons “You were there” is grammatically correct.

If addressing one individual (say Mary) it logically follows that “You was there” is grammatically correct. (you would not say “Mary were there.”)

Many English speakers would not know the difference and therefore use the former as a “fits all” application.

Others may feel that the fact that we have forgotten how to distinguish between the two does not make our present popular usage correct.

I'm just about ready to send this thread to the Language Log for their dispute resolution services.

If addressing one individual (say Mary) it logically follows that “You was there” is grammatically correct.

Logical, yes; grammatical, no. "You" doesn't follow the same rule as other singular pronouns. The English language is full of exceptions to rules.

37> You are having a dispute ? The rest of us are enjoying a discussion at pedants' corner.

38> Hi r.orrison. Thanks for that. "You" doesn't follow the same rule as other singular pronouns. Our search could not find any written evidence to support this, try as we may, Hence the question posed in 1>. Your help would be appreciated.

There isn't really anything to discuss. Less than a minute of googling finds:

Remember the plural form of the personal pronoun you always takes were, though it may denote but one. Thus, "You were," never "you was."
http://www.lousywriter.com/grammar_mistakes_was_or_were.php

And the table of simple past singular and plural conjugation of the verb be at http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses_sys-tenses-be.htm

and...
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/verbtobe.html

and...
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic28237.html

Would you like more?

Yes.. .. Yes.. Now we're cooking. Brilliant contribution, thank you. Printing them off now to see if holes can be picked in any of them.

Printing them off ???

You can pick any holes you want, but that won't change anything. In case you want a few more to print off and pick holes in: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=conjugation+of+the+%22verb+be%22

I judge you to be trolling and will not reply to any further posts on the topic.

It is also difficult to decide if “thou were” or “thou was”

"Thou wast". But if you have to choose, "thou were" is much better than "thou was" (or preferably "thou wert"; you need to use subjunctives a lot more to sound genuinely archaic...it's wrong, anyway, to assume that just because "was" is used in the 1st and 3rd singular and "were" throughout the plural, that "was" is singular and "were" is plural -- in Old English, ic wæs, þu wære, he{o} wæs; we wæron, ge wæron, hie wæron -- "were" is the 2nd person singular)

43> Many thanks for that Paul, it concurs with the excellent explanations given in the web pages thoughtfully listed in post 40.

One of those sites gives a link to an article by American author Bill Bryson, no less. Bill gives this exact topic an airing in his usual inimitable style. He concludes that the totally illogical situation came about in the 17th century royal courts and became ingrained into English language by constant use. A concise and succinct explanation.

43> So Paul, would it be true to say that “thou wert” or “thou wast” differentiated between plural and singular respectively? If so, it is difficult to reconcile how just substituting “you” for the archaic “thou” could have left us with the illogical grammar pattern we use today.

In the Old English (sorry, can't even get my laptop to mirror your examples :o)) what would be the time-scale of it's use? It is a fascinating progression and any light you could throw on it would be very much appreciated.

Recovering from a rock climbing injury recently I joined others on the ward doing The Telegraph Crossword which resulted the “were/was” question being posted here upon my release. I now have the task of reporting during visiting hours all that I have learned to the others who do not have access to the internet. Their humour is unbelievable I'll probably have to write a book about in one day, it's certainly been worthwhile.

In the meantime they are having a job accepting:

Thou = I, he, she
Thee = Me, him, her
Thy/Thine = my/mine, his, her(s)

Could anyone expand on these for us?

>28 ScarletBea:

I'm pleased that you "cringe at the amount of spelling/grammar errors".

Please can you also learn to cringe when 'amount of' is used for an entity that is countable, and therefore cries out for 'number of' instead.

The problem is that this ugliness is so common now, and embraced by the lazy BBC, that I'm getting resigned to accepting it amongst the number of linguistic cringes I suffer daily.

Incidentally, I very often applaud the English of non-native speakers. In general, having learned the language, they go the extra mile and learn to get it right! Those who learn it in the cradle often seem happy to get by on a miserable subset of English.

>45 Novak: it is difficult to reconcile how just substituting “you” for the archaic “thou” could have left us with the illogical grammar pattern we use today.

Thou returnest to the same old questions, as if thou wert a ninny; nevertheless I believe thou art none, and shall not rise to thy bait.

However, I do thank thee for thy stubborn queries concerning "you was" (howsoever methinks thou wast insincere in posing them), for one cause only, and that is, that they have suggested to me an amusing speculation concerning southern American dialect. Permit me to explain.

The usage commonly scorned and deemed incorrect, though often heard, among southerners, may now be defended, by your lights, as an effort to impose logic and consistency upon our English tongue. Indeed, the effort is thoroughgoing, for not only do our southern rustics associate the singular you with the verb was, but they do refuse to regard the pronoun you as plural in number.

Pray observe the following figure:

* Second person singular: you was

* Second person plural: y'all were

T'is logical and consistent withal. I believe I have demonstrated that, according to your assumptions, rustic southern usage is to be preferred to standard usage, as it is far the more logical, and logic is the only standard, as thou dost stoutly maintain, to which grammar must be made to comply.

Wherefore, I presume that I may rely upon thee henceforth to consistently use you was and y'all were in thy own discourse, whether spoken or written, and without any exceptions of any kind. Thou shalt find thyself seconded in thy choice of pronouns and verbs by a swelling crowd, not only of southern swains, but of youthful adherents of what is called, I believe, the hipp-hopp fellowship within the larger American cities.

I take my leave of thee, sirrah.

Edited to fix error in distinguishing singular from plural

> 47. (howsoever methinks thou wast insincere in posing them),

At least y'all got that right. :)

Well, of course the phrase "the second person singular" takes "was" as its verb. All singular noun phrases use the singular third person forms of verbs.

And I'm surprised that your students were unanimous about "you was" being correct - is English their primary language? If so, which version do they speak?

Honestly, grammar does not conform to ideals. It's messy and tangled. Trying to argue for "you was" is a philosophical thought experiment - and I dare you to try to get it past any copyeditor as proper English.

> 49, 50

BoMag, you started each sentence with a definite determiner ("the"). Your students had to choose between two incorrectly formed sentences that lacked context. Most seem to have concluded that the subject of the sentence was an implied but omitted noun, "pronoun." It is correct to write, "The pronoun was there."

Their choice does not imply that they think that "you was", or "(second person singular pronoun) was", is correct.

Thanks #12, TheoClarke.

I have just ordered your suggestion Early Modern English.

Oh, by the way Novak...

Guido.

> 52

I'm not responsible for post #7.

Bon voyage, Messieurs Trolls.

>56 BoMag:
Ah, but you're forgetting that because of the Anglo-Saxons' famous inability to count sheep without falling asleep, they had an additional grammatical number, the sceáplice, which fell between the dual and the plural. You can't get away with an ad ovium argument.