the
use of _thou_ with a correspondent verb, its plural _you_, is usually
adopted to familiar conversation; as, Charles, _will you_ walk? instead
of--_wilt thou_ walk? _You read_ too fast, instead of--_thou readest_ too
fast."--_Jaudon's Gram._, p. 33.

[243] This position, as may be seen above, I do not suppose it competent
for any critic to maintain. The use of _you_ for _thou_ is no more
"contrary to grammar," than the use of _we_ for _I_; which, it seems, is
grammatical enough for all editors, compilers, and crowned heads, if not
for others. But both are _figures of syntax_; and, as such, they stand upon
the same footing. Their only contrariety to grammar consists in this, that
the words are not the _literal representatives_ of the number for which
they are put. But in what a posture does the grammarian place himself, who
condemns, as _bad English_, that phraseology which he constantly and
purposely uses? The author of the following remark, as well as all who have
praised his work, ought immediately to adopt the style of the Friends, or
Quakers: "The word _thou_, in grammatical construction, is preferable to
_you_, in the second person singular: however, custom has familiarized the
latter, and consequently made it more general, though BAD GRAMMAR. To say,
'_You are a man_.' is NOT GRAMMATICAL LANGUAGE; the word _you_ having
reference to _a plural noun only_. It should be, '_Thou art a
man_.'"--_Wright's Philosoph. Gram._, p. 55. This author, like Lindley
Murray and many others, continually calls _himself_ WE; and it is probable,
that neither he, nor any one of his sixty reverend commenders, _dares
address_ any man otherwise than by the above-mentioned "BAD GRAMMAR!"

[244] "We are always given to cut our words short; and, _with very few
exceptions_, you find people writing _lov'd, mov'd, walk'd_; instead of
_loved, moved, walked._ They wish to make the _pen_ correspond with the
_tongue._ From _lov'd, mov'd, walk'd_, it is very easy to slide into _lovt,
movt, walkt._ And this has been the case with regard to _curst, dealt,
dwelt, leapt, helpt_, and many others in the last inserted list. It is just
as proper to say _jumpt_, as it is to say _leapt_; and just as proper to
say _walkt_ as either; and thus we might go on till the orthography of the
whole language were changed. When the love of contraction came to operate
on such verbs as _to burst_ and _to light_, it found such a clump of
consonants already at the end of t