Hamlet himself also uses this generalized "your:" "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots; your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table--that's the end" (_Hamlet_. 3.3.21-25). It's a great dialogue, with Hamlet baiting Claudius so very effectively. Abbott describes this generalization interestingly: 'Your' in these sentences "is used to appropriate an object to a person addressed" (_A Shakespearean Grammar_. Macmillan & Co., 1870: 148.). I love the description, but I wish I knew a cool bit of terminology for it! Paul D. "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128). ________________________________ From: Edmond Wright <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 6:19:41 AM Subject: Re: Adpositions in English > ...'As You Like It' (Act V, sc. iv, ll. 70-102): ... TOUCHSTONE: .... Your 'if'' is the only peacemaker; much virtue in 'if.' (This is a telling example of the Fool's wisdom.) Incidentally, the use of 'your' in the last sentence as a generalizing word has disappeared from English, both British and American. See also its use by the Gravedigger in 'Hamlet' (V, I, 176-7): '. . . Your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body'. To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/