Given my natural aversion to *usted* in Spanish and *vous* in French, I'm starting to think that out of consistency I should adopt the Quaker *thou* in English.
Unfortunately it's a tough bind because the Quakers originally adopted it out of a democratizing instinct — *thou* was the familiar second person and *you* the formal — but in the modern era it sounds archaic, making it sound MORE formal than *you*.
Also it's a very weird thinking to do.
This is a pretty interesting article about Quaker use of *thee* and *thou*: https://www.friendsjournal.org/2007098/
I knew about the general phenomenon and the justification, but I didn't realize that it had come full circle with some Quakers using thee as an informal register 😅
Also a culture war with proxy battles fought over pronouns sounds familiar 😂
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://qoto.org/users/pganssle/statuses/115599871676110943 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)
