Thee/thou/thy/thine: AMIRITE?
May. 25th, 2008 01:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_belle_laide"Thou eyes are like stars."
"Thy will soon know true love."
"Thee shall surely understand."
"Thine should flee from my wicked thoughts."
Surely you have heard such pretentious mangling of what used to be the English language in what many self-called "writers" are pleased to call their "poems" and "prose," right?
Well, hard and fast rule about using archaic words in order to sound impressive and, well, archaic: unless you understand how to use them, DON'T. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I see "writers" all over the internet throwing beating these poor old personal pronouns against the brick wall of their own insufferable airs. And I don't know which I hate worse: the people who, completely without irony and thinking they are so fantastic, write with such pretentious idiocy to begin with, or those who praise them for being "archaic," "baroque," "deep," and "romantic."
They are not. They are pretentious fools who never bothered to learn the rules.
Let me break it down nice and simple for anyone who wants to learn.
First let me stress that the use of "thee/thou/thy/thine" was only appropriate when speaking to someone of the same or of lower class than you. It is informal and if you were addressing someone above you in rank or class, you would not use any of those pronouns. Now let's get to what means what. Here are the basics:
Thee: Objective, intransitive
Thou: Nominative, transitive
Thy/Thine: possessive
That too tough for you? Then allow me to elaborate:
Thee means "you," you got that part right. "Objective" means that something is happening to the pronoun, to the "you" in question. It is intransitive; the verb can go no further than "thee." "I give this to thee." "Fool, I smite thee." "I would love to bitchslap thee." Thee is the object of the sentence. With me so far? (Two exceptions: the use of "thee" in Stephen King's Gunslinger series, in which "thee" was just a term of endearment. But Stephen King knows the rules and that's why he can break them sometimes. If you're going to attempt to be a writer and break some rules, have a good reason for breaking them and make sure the reader understands it, or the discerning reader will just take you for an idiot. The second exception is the Quakers who sometimes use "thee" instead of"thou." This might be where King got the idea in the first place.)
Thou is nominative. It is transitive, it does or is things. "Thou art a fool." "Thou hast not learned a thing." "Thou makest me so angry with thine idiocy."
Thy and thine are possessive. The next time you see anyone using "thy/thine" as a nominative, kill it dead, squash it. To make it simpler: think of "your" and "yours." Would you say "Your will soon know true love" or "yours should flee from my wicked thoughts?" Unless you were a freaking idiot, you would not, at least not without attempting humor. Corny as it is, "Thine eyes are like the stars" is correct. "Thine does not understand" is NOT correct. "Thy brain is like a jar of sand." Get me?
(The same goes for "who," "she," and "he," and "whom," "her" and "him." Think of how you would use those pronouns when attempting to use pretentious, needless, outdated terms like thee/thou/thy/thine.)
Better yet, unless you are being ironic or humorous, leave them out altogether. Except for in rare cases when "thee" can sound sweet and endearing, you're just going to sound pretentious. Mostly, don't attempt any archaic sounding words if you don't know their meanings. Even if you think you know their meanings.
A note on "ye" while we're at it: it is an old plural pronoun for "you." You would address a group fo people as "ye" and never as "thou" or "thee."
And a quick word on adding "eth" to words, the way people do in order to sound "Shakespearean." Even as a gag, this fails, because most of the time people put it in the wrong place. "Taketh thee-eth this-eth booketh...." First of all, after a "thou" pronoun, the following verb would most likely end in -st. "Thou hast," "thou makest," "thou lovest." The -eth ending usually goes in an imperative case: you're telling someone to do something. "Taketh thou this book." So adding -eth to the end of every sentence more or less just shows that you don't know where these suffixes go.
Unless you are trying to be funny, if you have not understood this entirely, do not bother to use "thee/thou/thy/thine," unless, of course, you wish to be known for an idiot by those who do understand how to use them. It is not "a stylistic choice." It is not "bending the rules." It simply shows that you don't know what you're doing. On the other hand, if you're trying to consider yourself a "serious writer" and you're still using these wrong, please keep on. It lets the rest of us know that you just don't get it.
"Thy will soon know true love."
"Thee shall surely understand."
"Thine should flee from my wicked thoughts."
Surely you have heard such pretentious mangling of what used to be the English language in what many self-called "writers" are pleased to call their "poems" and "prose," right?
Well, hard and fast rule about using archaic words in order to sound impressive and, well, archaic: unless you understand how to use them, DON'T. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I see "writers" all over the internet throwing beating these poor old personal pronouns against the brick wall of their own insufferable airs. And I don't know which I hate worse: the people who, completely without irony and thinking they are so fantastic, write with such pretentious idiocy to begin with, or those who praise them for being "archaic," "baroque," "deep," and "romantic."
They are not. They are pretentious fools who never bothered to learn the rules.
Let me break it down nice and simple for anyone who wants to learn.
First let me stress that the use of "thee/thou/thy/thine" was only appropriate when speaking to someone of the same or of lower class than you. It is informal and if you were addressing someone above you in rank or class, you would not use any of those pronouns. Now let's get to what means what. Here are the basics:
Thee: Objective, intransitive
Thou: Nominative, transitive
Thy/Thine: possessive
That too tough for you? Then allow me to elaborate:
Thee means "you," you got that part right. "Objective" means that something is happening to the pronoun, to the "you" in question. It is intransitive; the verb can go no further than "thee." "I give this to thee." "Fool, I smite thee." "I would love to bitchslap thee." Thee is the object of the sentence. With me so far? (Two exceptions: the use of "thee" in Stephen King's Gunslinger series, in which "thee" was just a term of endearment. But Stephen King knows the rules and that's why he can break them sometimes. If you're going to attempt to be a writer and break some rules, have a good reason for breaking them and make sure the reader understands it, or the discerning reader will just take you for an idiot. The second exception is the Quakers who sometimes use "thee" instead of"thou." This might be where King got the idea in the first place.)
Thou is nominative. It is transitive, it does or is things. "Thou art a fool." "Thou hast not learned a thing." "Thou makest me so angry with thine idiocy."
Thy and thine are possessive. The next time you see anyone using "thy/thine" as a nominative, kill it dead, squash it. To make it simpler: think of "your" and "yours." Would you say "Your will soon know true love" or "yours should flee from my wicked thoughts?" Unless you were a freaking idiot, you would not, at least not without attempting humor. Corny as it is, "Thine eyes are like the stars" is correct. "Thine does not understand" is NOT correct. "Thy brain is like a jar of sand." Get me?
(The same goes for "who," "she," and "he," and "whom," "her" and "him." Think of how you would use those pronouns when attempting to use pretentious, needless, outdated terms like thee/thou/thy/thine.)
Better yet, unless you are being ironic or humorous, leave them out altogether. Except for in rare cases when "thee" can sound sweet and endearing, you're just going to sound pretentious. Mostly, don't attempt any archaic sounding words if you don't know their meanings. Even if you think you know their meanings.
A note on "ye" while we're at it: it is an old plural pronoun for "you." You would address a group fo people as "ye" and never as "thou" or "thee."
And a quick word on adding "eth" to words, the way people do in order to sound "Shakespearean." Even as a gag, this fails, because most of the time people put it in the wrong place. "Taketh thee-eth this-eth booketh...." First of all, after a "thou" pronoun, the following verb would most likely end in -st. "Thou hast," "thou makest," "thou lovest." The -eth ending usually goes in an imperative case: you're telling someone to do something. "Taketh thou this book." So adding -eth to the end of every sentence more or less just shows that you don't know where these suffixes go.
Unless you are trying to be funny, if you have not understood this entirely, do not bother to use "thee/thou/thy/thine," unless, of course, you wish to be known for an idiot by those who do understand how to use them. It is not "a stylistic choice." It is not "bending the rules." It simply shows that you don't know what you're doing. On the other hand, if you're trying to consider yourself a "serious writer" and you're still using these wrong, please keep on. It lets the rest of us know that you just don't get it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-25 09:13 am (UTC)Sorry. I tried to resist. Really!
no subject
Date: 2008-05-25 02:15 pm (UTC)Dang, that's some messed up html I had going on there. I don't even really remember writing and posting this before bed last night. O_o
no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 02:14 am (UTC)THERE IS NO REASON TO.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 02:31 pm (UTC)You also taught me to use these correctly and not sound like a fool. Congratulations.