We're All Debased and Depraved, Apparently!

The prescriptivist "Language is going to hell in a handbasket" sentiment is probably as old as time (and I'm sure I have descriptivist spiritual ancestors that go back just as far). For some, it's literally religious! Below is a quote from Thomas Elwood, an early Quaker and a friend of John Milton (of Paradise Lost fame).

"Again, the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a single person, you to one, instead of thou, contrary to the pure, plain, and single language of truth, thou to one, and you to more than one, which has always been used by God to men, and men to God, as well as one to another, from the oldest record of time till corrupt men, for corrupt ends, in later and corrupt times, to flatter, fawn, and work upon the corrupt nature in men, brought in that false and senseless way of speaking you to one, which has since corrupted the modern languages, and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men..."

(The Varieties of Religious Experience pg. 259)

Sounds a lot like those "you can't use 'they' as a singular, neuter pronoun!" rants, doesn't it?