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And here's another thing: thee and thou being misused

(14 Posts)
Aely Mon 16-Jun-25 11:59:41

O.k., "And" at the beginning of a sentence may be grammatically bad but sometimes nothing else fits...

Everytime I watch a film about the Amish, I am intensely annoyed by their (or the Hollywood writers' and Producers') lack of knowledge about "olde English".

I cringe when they say "Thee are a guest here". No, Thou art a guest here. If thou art going to speak old English, please get it right! Thou should'st know thy thees from thy thous and the form of what comest after. To any Hollywood writer (or not properly educated member of the Amish community, come to me and I will give thee a lesson.

On the subject of Old English I am sure that everybody on this Forum is also aware that it is not "Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe" with a Y. It is The Olde Sweet Shoppe" where an old letter for the sound "th", looking similar to, but not the same as, Y is used.

Flutterby345 Mon 16-Jun-25 12:14:17

So thou is subject and thee is object. Had not occurred to.me before now.

winterwhite Mon 16-Jun-25 12:20:24

As in, 'I X take thee Y' in the old marriage service. And 'Wherever thou goest I will go' etc etc throughout the bible.It's the New English bible and prayer book that have done the damage.

I haven't seen any such films.

Notagranny44 Mon 16-Jun-25 12:25:08

I am alone in thinking what a pity it is that "thee" and "thou" have gone out of general use? It's such a lovely, intimate form of address.

MiniMoon Mon 16-Jun-25 13:41:05

I subscribe to RobWords on YouTube. He has an interesting video on this subject, here's the link.
youtu.be/RNkGb6nj934?si=HWRKg55f-HXXS2lA

Mamie Mon 16-Jun-25 13:51:39

I went to a football match on Boxing Day once and the Yorkshire crowd shouted th'art too full of Christmas pudding. 😂
I don't know how much it survives in Yorkshire now? It would be interesting to know if it causes the same difficulties of knowing when to say tu or vous in French without causing offence.
Obviously singular and plural are much clearer than using you.

Witzend Tue 17-Jun-25 20:11:01

My student landlady (Yorkshire in the 60s) used thee and thou to her budgie. He used to like sitting on the mantelpiece and knocking over all her little ornaments. Hence, ‘What’s tha doing? Tha little booger!’
(But she loved him dearly.).

Re the main point, I suppose that this of us who were brought up with the King James Bible, even if only in school assemblies, would never have any trouble knowing our thees from our thous.
The New English Bible just isn’t the same, is it? Sounds so banal by comparison.

valdavi Tue 17-Jun-25 20:18:47

My favourite quote is 'We be of one blood, thou and I' (Jungle book) & the thou is part of the reason it sends tingles down my spine.

Notagranny44 Tue 17-Jun-25 21:24:01

I couldn't agree more!

JackyB Wed 18-Jun-25 07:42:05

I don't have any problems with them because I'm speaking German most of the time and the pronouns vary, of course, according to whether it's in the nominative, accusative or dative.

Neither would I, for the same reason, have trouble differentiating between old conjugations (I love, thou lovest, he loveth) which seem to confuse people when trying to imitate old English - they just plonk "-eth" on the end of any old word, which makes nonsense of it. Again, anyone who knows their King James would not make that mistake (the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away)

AuntieE Tue 24-Jun-25 14:31:40

Grammatically OP you are right.

However, the Amish usage corresponds to the usage that could originally be found used by English Quakers, and which I assume came from the dialect spoken in the southern counties of England.

Witzend Tue 24-Jun-25 14:39:25

I’ve seen thee/thou misused on a so-called funny birthday card. Can’t remember exactly but there was a wrong ‘archaic’ verb form, too. Don’t they get anyone literate to check these things?

Another thing I saw on a card (Mothers’ Day) was ‘If Mum’s were flowers, I’d pick you.’

You do have to wonder how they thought ‘Mums’ needed an apostrophe, but flowers didn’t.

butterandjam Mon 28-Jul-25 14:29:42

Notagranny44

I am alone in thinking what a pity it is that "thee" and "thou" have gone out of general use? It's such a lovely, intimate form of address.

In my childhood thee/ tha were still alive and well In Lancashire.

nightowl Mon 28-Jul-25 15:32:20

And in mine in Yorkshire butterandjam. In my childhood home as well, and at school (in the playground, not allowed in class).