Can anyone explain to me how to use those old words "thee", "thy", "thou"? Those are all I can think of now. Are there any more, and how do you use them? Which mean "your" and which mean "you"? If any of you know German you can also tell me the equivalent German words, as "you" can mean so many things in English. *************************************************************** 09-19-02, 08:36 AM juanruiz thou=Du thee=dich, dir (depending on function) thy=dein- (I'm omitting all the possible adjective endings)
09-19-02, 09:47 AM Texan-In-Exile "Thou" is used as a subject: "Thou art my friend."
"Thee" is used as an object: "I'm happy to be friends with thee."
"Thy" is possessive: "Count me among thy friends."
I hope this helps.
PS - Juan - I was taught that "thou" was the formal form of "you": Thou - Sie Thee - Ihnen Thy - Dein, deine, et al. 09-19-02, 01:21 PM frankvan TexanIE, PS - Juan - I was taught that "thou" was the formal form of "you": Thou - Sie Thee - Ihnen Thy - Dein, deine, et al. __________________________________________________
Just the opposite, Du is familiar, Sie is formal.
09-19-02, 02:09 PM juanruiz In English thou was familiar, not formal. It's etymolgically associated with the du of German.
09-19-02, 02:27 PM Kati99 Thanks everyone, I think I get it! Cool you all know German! It was a good idea to explain it that way! So "you" used to be only formal, like Sie? And all of the old stuff I've mentioned was informal?
Now what about the plurals: were they the same as now?
I had another one come to my mind: "thine". What's up with that one, does that also mean "dein"? Like the 2nd person form for mine?
09-19-02, 03:17 PM Ewood27 'Thine' is like 'yours' (singular), e.g. 'That friend of thine'.
Plurals: 'Ye' is the plural of 'thou' and 'thee'. 'Your' is the plural of 'thy' and 'yours' of 'thine'.
One final point - if you are going to use 'thou' as the subject. the verb form should be 'thou art', 'thou goest', 'thou hast' etc.
Alles klar?
09-19-02, 04:37 PM maiku One small correction of Ewood's post: Originally, the form "ye" was the subject form of the second person plural in English, thus corresponding to "thou," while "you," was originally the object form, corresponding to "thee." The distinction is exemplified, e.g., in John 8:32, in the King James version: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
In modern English the form "ye" has been displaced by "you" almost entirely, but it could still be heard in Mountain Southern American English when I was young. smile
09-20-02, 08:00 AM Texan-In-Exile I stand corrected - "You" is the formal form, and "thou" is the familiar form.
It's been a few years - thanks for reminding me, Juan and Frank!
09-21-02, 02:36 PM Ewood27 I tracked this down in dictionary.com :
In Old English ye was used only as a nominative, and you only as a dative or objective. In the 16th century, however, ye and you became confused and were often used interchangeably, both as nominatives and objectives, and you has now superseded ye except in solemn or poetic use.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye. --Shak.
I come, kind gentlemen, strange news to tell ye. --Dryden.
09-21-02, 03:26 PM maiku The Webster's source Ewood cites is correct, of course, in observing that Dryden and Shakespeare sometimes misused the nominative form "ye." The translators of the authorized version, to whom I referred, contemporary with Shakespeare and earlier than Dryden, were more fastidious. The KJ Bible, by the way, is hardly Old English. It is early modern English.
The Webster's source fails to mention the survival of the form "ye" in various American dialects, where it can be either subject or non-subject case. Many scholars argue that the form of the pronoun heard widely in sentences like "nice to see ya" is a survival of "ye" rather than a reduction of "you." This usage is anything but "solemn," of course. wink
09-21-02, 11:35 PM anguilla Unless I misread the other comments, no one mentioned that the word following "thy" or "thine" determines which word is used.
"Thy" is used before words beginning with a consontant: thy cup runneth over. "Thine" is used before words beginning with a vowel: thine alabaster cities gleam.
Reason? It's easier to pronounce that way!
10-01-02, 05:35 PM Julieta Martinez Why did the words change? Anybody know?
10-15-02, 12:16 AM kdp333 Can you imagine anyone talking to each other such as this? "Thou sayist that thee may believeth mine story is truth?" "You say that you may believe my story is true? Webster wasn't there in those days and language had changed so much over the years. Dictionaries are rewritten to keep up with the change. It seems people are leaning to speak more clearer and more simplier. That is this persons thoughts! What do other's think? smile
10-15-02, 02:08 PM Ewood27 I once heard tell of a foreign visitor to London who boarded a bus. When the conductor took an unduly long time to issue his ticket, he said, "Prithee, why tarriest thou so long?"
Alas, history does not record what the conductor said!
10-16-02, 02:05 PM Sarai In Old English, was there ever a plural form of the informal "thou" and the formal "you?" I don't speak German, but I'm wondering if there were ever English words that might correspond to "ustedes" and "vosotros" in Spanish.
10-16-02, 02:35 PM maiku Except for nonstandard forms like y'all (and youse or youse guys where I live), there never were alternate plural forms of ye and you in English, for the very good reason that ye and you are originally themselves the plural forms, corresponding to the singular thou and thee.
The use of plural second person pronouns as "polite" or "formal" singulars is a development which happened in nearly all European languages. It is no accident that today English uses plural verb forms. e.g., are and were to agree with a singular you. In Alexander Pope's day, this usage had not yet been clearly decided, so that you was was good usage back then (mid 18th century). The same thing is true in German, were "Sie sind," like "you are," has an originally plural verb form.
Much the same thing happened in French and Spanish. I'll leave it to Juan to explain the details here, since he's much better informed about romance linguistics than I.
10-16-02, 06:41 PM Omega Raven It's a common misconception that this is Old English. It's not even close. Old English and even Middle English are so different from Modern English, almost noone alive today (but for some scholars) would be able to understand any of it.
What you speak of is called "Elizabethan English", and was popularized greatly by the works of that grand ol' wordsmith, Sir William Shakespeare; who used the Queen's English with a passion, and even added to quite a bit of it!
10-20-02, 12:08 PM juanruiz Latin had only two second-person subject pronouns, the singular tu and the plural vos. As the strongly hierarchical feudal society of the Middle Ages developed in romance-speaking areas, the notion that pronouns should reflect the social rank of individuals came into play. Thus such forms as found in the monarchy and nobility (vuestra majestad, vuestra alteza) spawned such analogous forms as vuestra señoría (your lordship) and vuestra merced (your grace) [these are Spanish but similar forms are found in other romance languages]. Notice that these are actually third-person pronouns; the idea being that a lower status person should not speak "directly" to a higher status person. An English analogy today is the title Your Honor when addressing a judge. For some time the forms usía and usted (contractions of the original) competed, with usted winning out. Since it was originally a third-person form it took that verb ending.
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