True or False: "English lacks a standard gender-neutral second-person plural pronoun."

It's news to me, but apparently Joe Pinsker (affiliated with The Atlantic?) says so in this article.

The problem, for those who want to ditch [the usage of] "guys", is that their language doesn’t present them with many versatile replacements; English lacks a standard gender-neutral second-person plural pronoun, like the Spanish ustedes or the German ihr.

I was taught that the "standard gender-neutral second-person plural pronoun" was "you." (As in "I", "you", "one", "we", "you", "they".)

I was also taught about "implicit 'you' ". This allows me to greet a crowd with "Good morning!" or "Hello!", where the object, you, is implicit or understood without being articulated.

(I've tagged this with "irregular-plurals" because "implicit 'you' " seems to me quite irregular, but I'm not a language expert.)

Solution 1:

In comments...

John Lawler said...

English lacks a standard anything.

English dialects cover all bases, just not for everybody playing the same game. Or, in this case, a recent rhyme answers the question: Roses are red/Violets are blue/Singular they's older/Than singular you.

and also...

It wasn't a word; it was a paradigm. Just as I, me, my, mine was and still is the first person singular pronoun paradigm, the second person singular (and familiar) paradigm in Early Modern English was thou, thee, thy, thine, and the second person plural (and polite) paradigm was ye, you, your, yours.

Cascabel said...

I think what they mean is there is no plural form that differentiates the singular "you" from the plural "you"...such as "you guys" or "all y'all".

Bold Ben said

There are three forms of the second person singular familiar pronoun which correspond to the three forms of the first person singular and the third person masculine and feminine pronouns (the third person neuter only has two forms).The nominative (corresponds to 'I', 'he', she and it) is 'thou', the accusative (corresponds to 'me', 'him'. 'her' and 'it') is 'thee' and the possessive (corresponds to 'mine', 'his', 'hers' and 'its') is 'thine' The verbs parts used with the nominate case are also specific, for example 'thou hast', 'thou sittest', 'thou art'.

Solution 2:

how about "you folks", in lieu of "you guys"?