been lenited. It is often used to draw attention to at public notices orally and written – teachers will say "Blant" (mutation of "children") and signage such as one right show mutation of "myfyrwyr" (students) to draw attention to the importance of the notice. Germanic languages English The vocative case in modern English is not generally used in regular communication. Vocative case in English is marked by the particle "O" preceding the noun; this is often used in English translations of languages that do have the vocative case. It is often seen in the King James Version of the Bible: "O ye of little faith" (in Matthew 8:26). While it is not strictly archaic, it is sometimes used to "archaeise" speech; it is often seen as very formal, and sees use in rhetoric and poetry, or as a comedic device to subvert modern speech. Another example is the recurrent use of the phrase "O (my) Best Beloved" by Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories. The use of O may be considered a form of clitic and should not be confused with the interjection oh. However, as the Oxford English Dictionary points out, "O" and "oh" were originally used interchangeably. With the advent of "oh" as a written interjection, however, "O" is the preferred modern spelling in vocative phrases. Modern English commonly uses the objective case for vocative expressions but sets them off from the rest of the sentences with pauses as interjections, rendered in writing as commas. Two common examples of vocative expressions in English are the phrases "Mr. President" and "Madam Chairwoman". Some traditional texts use Jesu, the Latin vocative form of Jesus. One of the best-known examples is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. German dialects In some German dialects, like the Ripuarian dialect of Cologne, it is common to use the (gender-appropriate) article before a person's name. In the vocative phrase then the article is, as in Venetian and Catalan, omitted. Thus, the determiner precedes nouns in all cases except the vocative. Any noun not preceded by an article or other determiner is in the vocative case. It is most often used to address someone or some group of living beings, usually in conjunction with an imperative construct. It can also be used to address dead matter as if the matter could react or to tell something astonishing or just happening such as "Your nose is dripping."