According to John Tanner, Jacob's style sets him apart from Nephi. Jacob simply sounds different. . . . Jacob uses "brethren" (Jacob 2:2) often in his discourses to the Nephites. It is his preferred salutation; he employs it some fifty times and almost never addresses his audience directly as "my people," the proprietary term preferred by Nephi (Conkling 4-5). Jacob's mode of address connotes familial intimacy appropriate to a patriarch and priest; Nephi's suggests rule or ownership befitting a king. [John S. Tanner, "Literary Reflections on Jacob and His Descendants," in The Book of Mormon: Jacob through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy, p. 264]