The one for me that got me thinking about this is that I feel we really need to add a gender-neutral pronoun to supplement he/she (plus a form for him/her) for referring to a single human being without specifying gender. Though I have no idea what words should be used for that. Ideally something that is intuitive and has some existing connection with the language.
There's something which I would dearly like to see -- not so much a change; as educating out of stupidity. When it's wished to make a generalisation about how people behave: the language has a perfectly good word to express, in such circumstances, "a [generalised, any] person" -- i.e. (as per
@Bald Rick, though context different): "one". Nowadays, though, it seems to be nearly universal for people to refuse to employ this form of expression -- using "one" in this sense, is felt to make the speaker / writer seem like a pompous / prissy / pedantic twit, and / or a member of the Royal Family. People therefore feel that for this purpose, they have to employ "you". Consequent potential ambiguity as to whether they mean literally "you", or whether it's the sense of "a person" -- it can at times truly be not completely obvious which is meant -- a pause needed, to work it out. If "one" were tolerated in this sense, the confusion-factor would be removed. (Quite often, in posting on message boards, people type "you" in this sense, and then find the need to follow the word, with "[general]" -- crazy, I feel, when we have "one" there, begging to be used.)
And perhaps a personal quirk of mine; but when listening to someone spouting generalities about what people do or think, and using "you" -- though "knowing with head" that they mean it in the general sense -- gut-feeling tends to make me quite cross: wanting to yell at the speaker, "don't you bloody pontificate to me about what I do or think -- you don't know nearly enough about me, for that !" If only people felt that they might use "one"; and used it: this "bother" would not arise.
The eighth letter of the English alphabet is also not pronounced 'haitch'.
I seem to recall reading somewhere, that with the way of things in Northern Ireland -- with its million different respective ways of setting about things, distinguishing Protestants and Catholics -- it's more or less standard there, for one bunch to say "aitch"; and the other, "haitch" (I don't know "which does which" here).
Separate words for the plural and singular forms of "you" and "your", and the inclusive and exclusive forms of "we" and "our"
We had them! They were simplified out of English, and are now just considered something to annoy English speakers trying to learn a foreign language...
@py_megapixel; and
@duncombec, with your "we had them", as above -- I'm puzzling over this, a bit: clarification would be welcome. My understanding is that this refers to "myself, and you (one person or more) whom I am addressing"; versus "myself, and one or more persons who are other than you whom I am addressing" -- are we thinking of the same thing? If so: what English form to make this distinction did we once have, but have no longer?
A matter re this one, which has always tickled me: an instance of the way in which "pidgin" English of one kind or another, can sometimes be more precise and handier, than standard English. Pidgin as spoken in the South Pacific area, has the above distinction as regards "we" -- maybe similarly for "our"; the "we" usage anyway, is handled by "yumi" [you and me], and "mipela" [me and the other fellow].
ETA: taking thought -- the above-mentioned excellent communication-medium, makes much use of "bilong" = "belong", for anything in the "possessive" realm. "Our / ours" would presumably be "bilong yumi" and "bilong mipela", as appropriate.
