DEAR HELOISE: King Alfred the Great would never have said “you” to one person, since this was the plural form, and “thou” was the singular form. (This can be compared to the German “du” and the Spanish “tu.”) After the French-speaking Normans in 1066 forced a two-tier society on England, they demanded that they should be addressed with the plural pronoun, while they addressed the conquered natives with the singular (which explains why the plural “are” is still used with “you”). Examples of changes could be multiplied.

While the invaders and natives eventually melded, the two-tier system remained, with French vocabulary (and later Latin, the language of education) being dominant in the speech of the upper class.

To gain access to membership in the upper class, those in the lower class had to learn the speech of their social betters. Thus was born the idea of “correct English.”

When schools were established, it was naturally this socially correct variety of the language that was inculcated and even hallowed. (I once heard a teacher correct a student by saying, “God doesn’t want you to talk this way.”)

Unfortunately, generations of students have been brainwashed with the misconception that there’s an absolute “pure” form of the language.

An old quip says that the only thing constant in language is change, and a language doesn’t exist apart from its speakers. It isn’t languages that change — people change their language.

Social norms exist in language as they do in other areas of life, and norms change differently among groups that are separated in any way — socially, geographically or temporally. After all, 2,500 years ago, English and German were one language.

— Rudy T., in Tucson, Arizona

DEAR HELOISE:After over 60 years of being frustrated when struggling to separate a bowl-shaped coffee filter from the stack that it comes packaged in, I’ve discovered a trick! If I hold a portion of the stack in my hand and blow down on the exposed edges, the outside filter will separate from the stack and can easily be peeled off.

— Chadron O., via email

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