118 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



reason that it slights the person mentioned. But as one of the 

 names for colloquial jDarticipants or strictly ^^personal pro- 

 nouns/' ^^he" must in this meaning be emphasized and, I think, 

 alone recognized. 



So far as "it'' is concerned, I do not remember any usage in 

 which it is personal in the present restricted sense, except as 

 word of either gender, applied for instance to a babe or child 

 of unknown sex. 



By extension "he" is made to name any person present, even one by 

 deafness excluded from the rank of hearer. Such usage begins an ob- 

 vious transition to the demonstrative category, "he" in this case ap- 

 proaching the meaning of "that person." However, distinction from 

 the senior and junior colloquial partners still is dominant, rather than, 

 spatial relation to you or me. 



With the colloquial trio, composed of speaker, hearer and over- 

 hearer, the list of participants in thought-communication may be re- 

 garded as complete. It is true that in the act of speech there may be 

 other quasi participants. These may be distinguished, in a sense, as 

 secret partners, including the hearer whose unnoted presence is acci- 

 dental, as well as the intentional eaves-dropper. As such, however, 

 figure only in their own consciousness or, if perceived, take rank at 

 once as participants of the already mentioned orders, they may safely 

 be neglected. 



THEIR SO-CALLED PLURALS. 



Grammar will have it that "we" is the plural of "I." In striv- 

 ing to reduce this proposition to absurdity, I naake at once the 

 somewhat difficult concession, that "we" may have developed 

 from "I," somewhat as "cows" or "kine" developed from "cow ;" 

 that is, the "we" may have the form appropriate to a plural 

 word and be moreover derived from "I." I contend however 

 that the meaning of "we" is not a plural meaning, and that, even 

 if it were, it could not be plural to the meaning of "I." 



Overlooking the artificial use of "we" by royalty, the editor 

 (collaborator) and him who deems it more modest to speak 

 of himself as many than as one, I first observe that plurality 

 is something more than multiplicity. Thus a cow and one or 

 more other cows assuredly constitute a plural, while a group 

 made up of a cow, a horse, and a goat, is only a multiple. By 

 modification it is doubtless easy to make it a plural. If you 



