On the Restoration of the Second Person Familiar During the Holy Month of Pride…and Beyond.
Caleb Castaneda, Mundanus, Ambassador of the Venusian Confederation, Vicar of Kermit, Fabulous Custodian of the Rainbow, and Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx,
to all citizens of the Venusian diaspora, to all lovers, friends, roommates, spouses, situationships, exes, crushes, and companions in becoming:
Intimacy, relation, and grammatical clarity.
I. A Matter of Distance
- Among the diaspora, a question stirs: Why has the English tongue abandoned the second-person familiar singular? Why must all relations, whether intimate or collective, be flattened beneath the vague and overburdened “you”?
- Too long have we suffered under the tyranny of undifferentiated address. The singular beloved and the faceless crowd have been made grammatically alike. Intimacy has been exiled from speech.
- The second person familiar calls us back: to relation, specificity, affection, irritation, flirtation, and directness. It provokes because it insists that the person before us is not merely “one among many,” but thee.
II. On the Sacredness of Familiar Address
- It is fitting and proper for the Mundanus to declare that “thou” restores relational honesty to the English tongue.
- For when we say, “Thou left thy socks in the hallway,” we speak not to humanity in abstraction, but to a specific rascal whose socks remain, despite repeated admonitions, in the hallway.
- Likewise, “I love thee” bears a warmth and immediacy that “I love you” has too often surrendered to ambiguity.
- We therefore affirm: thou as singular familiar, thee as singular objective, and thy/thine as singular possessive, while preserving “you” for the plural and the generic.
III. On the Rejection of Archaic Conjugation
- Let none accuse us of antiquarian excess.
- We reject the unnecessary burdens of dost, canst, wilt, speakest, and other fossilized conjugations which increase cognitive load while contributing little beyond theatricality.
- The purpose of language is relation, not Renaissance Faire reenactment.
- Therefore we joyfully proclaim, “thou is,” “thou has,” and “thou does,” as natural developments of a living alternate, relational English.
IV. The Relational Benefits
- The restored familiar dissolves distance between persons. It allows us to distinguish the beloved from the crowd, the singular from the collective, the intimate from the abstract.
- Thus, “You should stop at stop signs” speaks generally to society, while “Thou should stop at stop signs” is a direct intervention concerning thy reckless driving.
- Such distinctions strengthen relation and clarify intention.
- During this Holy Month of Pride, we therefore celebrate not only queerness in flesh and affection, but queerness in language itself: the transgression of flattened forms and the restoration of intimacy to speech.
V. Final Declaration
- By the whimsical authority entrusted unto me as Mundanus, under the gaze of our wondrous sage Kermit the Frog, with full camp, sincerity, provocation, and grammatical determination, I hereby proclaim the restoration of the second-person familiar among the Venusian diaspora during this Holy Month of Pride and beyond.
- This declaration binds none by creed nor compels any tongue by force. Rather, it extends an invitation: that we might once more speak to one another not as abstractions, but as persons; not as audiences, but as companions in becoming.
- For language is not merely a tool of information, but a vessel of relation. And relation, properly tended, is among the holiest things we possess.
Final Blessing
May thou be known and not merely counted.
May thy companions address thee with warmth, mischief, honesty, and affection.
May thy lovers speak to thee tenderly, thy roommates forgive thee graciously, and thy exes remember thee selectively.
May thou never confuse the crowd for communion, nor generality for intimacy.
May thy pronouns be respected, thy syntax be adventurous, and thy group chats remain free of unnecessary discourse.
May the rainbow ever refract upon thee in manifold glory.
And may our wondrous sage, Kermit the Frog, who taught us that it is not easy being green, yet worthwhile nonetheless, guide thee gently toward relation, delight, and becoming.
Go forth now into the world! Not merely as “you,”, but as thou. And may thou walk thine ass rightly into the future.
Given under the light of the Evening Star during the Holy Month of Pride, in the year 2026 of our common era.
Caleb Castaneda, Mundanus