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Possible originator of the "Youse" confusion
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Posted by: Angus Cunningham
03/08/2008, 09:38:06

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A friend of mine sent me the following quotation:

"If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of the public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of the public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valueable, and your freedom less complete."
-- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Speech in the House of Commons, March 31, 1850

When Disraeli was using the word "you", was he avoiding using the word "I", or avoiding using the word "we"?

If not, to what kind of person was he addressing himself. If so, why was he evading "I's" or "we's"?

When a speaker uses the word "you" to avoid saying "I" or "we" (or "thou" or "ye"), what is the speaker truly doing (as opposed to really doing)?

Does the answer to this depend upon the speaker's social mandate?

What if the person or people addressed with such a vague/fraudulent "you" are quite ignorant of the specific legalities of the speaker's social mandate? what's this

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