Tuesday, March 18, 2014

word usage - Master to mister?

Why was Master weakened to Mister so as to address individual hominēs sapientēs and the English language lost the thou/you distinction while the Greek language kept both Kύριος intact and the Eσύ/Eσείς distinction?



Sir comes from Senex and I am not confortable with using Sir knowing it is a cognate with Senille.




Maybe a sociolinguistic approach would best explain this particular fact.



The Greeks most often earnestly use the plural Εσείς to address any adult(or even children older than 13 years old) that has not requested to quit formallities.

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