Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) - 3/28/2025

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Echo told me the other day his book was ready for download...

...but I had already read the first chapter! LOL! I just finished chapter two: "Poor Little You" which is all about the second person pronouns. It was really interesting with LOTS of shit I had never known. The first chapter was about "I and me", but I knew most of the info, though a few things were new. Chapter two rocked! The next one is about "We" .

I never realized/knew that "you" actually started out as the indirect pronoun for "Ye" and was plural! So, the singular was Thou/thee and the plural Ye/you! Eventually it all faded away until "You" came out the victor. Did you know that? Also, there were power dynamics involved in which term was used. "You" was used by the upper class to talk about the lower class, including women, and "Thou" was used to speak to anyone's "better". Did not know that either. McWhorter used a few examples from Shakespeare which made the dialogue more nuanced than I ever knew!

It is a fun book, and I will probably finish before week's end.