Uploaded February 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
English has many ways of enshrining social relationships and relative status in its forms of address. Some of the older, most formal forms like My Lord and Your Highness use pronouns that express the concept of possession, but why is it that sometimes the person with the higher status gets a MY and sometimes a YOUR? How can opposite concepts both be used for the same kind of status relationship? Produced for Mental Floss.
English has many ways of enshrining social relationships and relative status in its forms of address. Some of the older, most formal forms like My Lord and Your Highness use pronouns that express the concept of possession, but why is it that sometimes the person with the higher status gets a MY and sometimes a YOUR? How can opposite concepts both be used for the same kind of status relationship? Produced for Mental Floss.
