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English Historical Linguistics: Change in structure and meaning
Edited by Bettelou Los, Claire Cowie, Patrick Honeybone and Graeme Trousdale
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 358] 2022
► pp. 263–286

Chapter 11
Theatrical practices and grammatical standardization in eighteenth-century Britain

you was and you were

ORCID logo | University of Toronto
ORCID logo | University of Toronto
This chapter extends the discussion of second-person pronouns and of eighteenth-century language norms by examining three playwrights’ use of you was in the period before its proscription by grammarians like Robert Lowth (1762). Our analysis corroborates historical sociolinguistic surveys by Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2002) and Laitinen (2009) that identify you was as informal/familiar before 1762. We also show that you was was salient and associated with social lowness in comedies well before it was stigmatized by prescriptivists. Finally, while acknowledging the distinctness of theatrical language, we have identified one useful general property of comedy and especially romantic comedy. The stylized opposition between comic characters (particularly lovers) can signal sociolinguistic salience, here of you was/were by 1747.
Keywords: eighteenth-century British English, second-person pronoun, prescriptivism, normative linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, qualitative methods, dramatic literature, comedy, style-shifting, gender
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.1752–1773: A broadly quantitative overview
  • 5.Before 1762: Qualitative analysis of you was in context
    • 5.1Social status and you was
    • 5.2you was and you were in explicit contrast
    • 5.3you were in formal contexts
    • 5.4you was from condescension to emotion
    • 5.5Unaffected you was used by lead female characters
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.358.11hye
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Caon, Luisella, Moragh S. Gordon & Thijs Porck
2024. Introduction. In Unlocking the History of English [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 364], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hyett, James & Carol Percy
2024. Chapter 3. Gender, genre, and prescriptivism. In Unlocking the History of English [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 364], ► pp. 60 ff. DOI logo

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