City of IF

Mother Goose · Joined: 09 May 2004 Posts: 511 Location: Connecticut

Sometimes people might like to give their story a flavor of antiquity by using old-sounding speech with "thou" and so on, but not know how exactly, so in an effort to be helpful (as resident crone), I'm offering a few guidelines.

1. "Thou" is the singular "you" - plural is "ye" or "you". ("Ye" is still used in parts of Ireland and UK, and a useful word it is; we have to make do with "you all" or "you guys" or something when we want to be clear that we're speaking to more than one.)

The regular ending for a verb with thou is -est: thou sayest, thou fightest, thou sleepest. You can sometimes leave out the e: thou say'st, thou know'st. Say'st thou so? = Do you say so?

Irregular verbs often end in -st too: Thou hast, thou dost. But some don't: thou art, thou wilt, thou shalt.

2. When you're in this mode, you have to use endings on verbs in the third person singular too, and the normal ending is -eth: she sayeth (or saith), he fighteth, the dragon sleepeth.

Irregular verbs are similar: he hath, she doth. (Think lisping.) Some have not changed: he is, will, shall.

3. First person and plural verb forms are the same as modern: I do; we, you, or they fight.

4. Possessive of thou is thy or thine, corresponding to my or mine. Objective is thee.
"Thou hast killed me"; "I have killed thee".

Hope this helps.

Rune · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 285 Location: Get Lost.

What feathers said.

Chinaren · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject:

Ah yes, I remember Sunbellina and MG correcting a whole lot of these in one of my Linear comp stories. It's harder to do than it looks, just in case anyone was planning on using ye olde English.

Crossfire · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject:

I would note that the thee, thou, thy and so forth are the inferior and non-polite forms, for your social lessers, while you and your and such were the polite forms, and those for social superiors. However, strangely the former were the personal, friendly forms also... *curious and baffled*

Mother Goose · Joined: 09 May 2004 Posts: 511 Location: Connecticut

There must have been some period when they were simple singular/plural forms, like in Latin. Maybe in stories we could ignore the social aspect. It gets complicated even today in languages that have familiar and formal words for "you" - do I know this person well enough to call him du?

Anyway, it can't be just lack of respect; in the languages I know that have this feature (German and Spanish), the familiar form is what you use to address God. And it's not just familiarity either; in Guatemala, children use the formal one for their parents! I guess it depends on the custom of the place.

Crossfire · Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:10 pm Post subject:

I refer not to the archaic forms of other languages, but the language of English. In the time of Shakespeare, where the ancient stylistics mentioned are most commonly known, the rules that I stated are true, at least by way of my research. However, point taken. It is most curious that the base language has been warped so, despite the amount of time between its general death and the forms of the languages still extant today. *signing off*