The declension of the English personal pronouns is to be found in any elementary grammar. That of the third person is made up of fragments of several Anglo-Saxon words. The Anglo-Saxon pronoun was thus declined: Sing. Nom. he (lie), lie6 (she), hit (it) Gen. his hire his, Ace. bine hi hit Dat. him hire him Plur. Nom. Ace. hi Gen. hire (heora) Dat. him (heom) The eases marked in italics are still used in modern English, only that him and her do duty in the accusative as well as dative. Kis, as the genitive of the neuter, has been supplanted in recent times by the secondary genitive its, a word which does not occur once in the English version of the Bible. She does not represent the Anglo-Saxon het), but sea, the feminine of the article. The modern plurals they, their, them, have no direct etymological connection with the singular he (she, it); they are taken from the demon strative or article that (that, the), which has, in the plural, nominative and accusative thd, genitive thdra, dative thorn. Ahem, like him, was thus originally a dative case. Is it a lingering memory of the demonstrative origin of them that keeps alive the vulgar error of " them things?" Such being the arbitrary, or rather chance way in which the English pronominal sys tem has been built up out of the wrecks of the Anglo-Saxon, there is no good reason why them, him, ho-, should not have been used in the nominative as well as in the accusative; and, in fact, in certain connections, these forms, together with me, are habitually so used, although grammarians have hitherto refused to sanction the usage. Such expres
ions as, "It is me;" "better than him, than them," etc. are not confined to the unedu cated; in familiar conversation the most cultivated use them habitually, and in prefer ence to what are considered to be the correct forms, which are felt somehow to be stiff and pedantic. This usage has the analogy of the French in its favor (e.g., e'est mot), and some English philologists have begun to defend it on principle. See Alford, The Queen's ?glish.
From politeness and other rhetorical motives, various substitutes take the place of the usual personal pronouns. The English language departs little from the normal usage, except in you for thou, and in the regal and editorial we. A French shopkeeper, instead of " What do you wish to see?" says: " What does the gentleman (or lady) wish to see?" All modern languages use such substitutions as, "Your majesty, your excel lency, wishes;" but the Italian, in speaking further of the excellenza, says: "It (ella, she) wishes," The Germans use regularly they (me) for you, and one never hears you except from the pulpit. In Hebrew politeness took the form of saying: " Thy servant said, for said." Similarly, the Chinese use: "little man, subject, thief, blockhead," for " I;" and an American backwoodsman speaks of himself as " this 'oss," or " this here child."