Thee and Thou

[neil]

I well remember being confused as a young lad (in the 1950s in Lancashire)
delivering morning papers when approached by an old chap in cloth cap who
asked me: "Hastonnyshillin?"

It took me a few moments to work out that he said "Hast thou any shillings
[for the gas meter].

"Wirsta bin?" was a common question = "Where hast thou been?"

--Neil Crawford


on 9/28/05 7:55 PM, FRITZ JUENGLING at juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
> Subject:      Re: Thee and Thou
>
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> Ambiguity probably played no role either.  The Germans, Dutch, Swedes and a
> host of other people have no trouble using 'thou' (in their own language, of
> course) to their dogs, then to God, then to  street urchins and prostitutes,
> and then to their spouses and close friends.  Why should the English be unable
> to make such a distinction?  I think--and now I'm in the realm of pure
> speculation--that it probably was in imitation of courtly and upper class
> speech. But I have no evidence for that. That just seems much more likely than
> ambiguity.
> Some other interesing questions are why the formal/informal (or familiar)
> distinction arose at all (I think the answer to that sheds light on my answer
> to the original question) and why an oblique form came to be used in the
> nominative. Where the heck is 'ye'?
> Fritz J
>
>>>> paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU 09/28/05 09:29AM >>>
> Probably because of the ambiguity involved in Early Modern English.
> Thouing people could either signal that you were considering someone as
> a very close intimate of yours, or treating them as an inferior and
> putting them down.  While which meaning was signalled could be clarified
> given the context of the interaction, it was risky either to presume a
> close tie (which might be unwarranted) or to give someone the idea you
> might be putting them down.  You, as the pronoun of respect, was a safer
> choice.
> The Quakers used it to show we are all "friends" and fellow, equal
> children of God.
> There are British dialects which still use thou--a lot of the
> Northern and North Midland group (Cumberland and S Durham down to
> Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire), a few Southwestern varieties (E Somerset) &
> Insular Scots (Orkney & Shetland).  It is recessive everywhere, and
> possibly gone or nearly gone in the SW; the same ambiguities apply as in
> EModEng, but the putdown uses seem a little less common (though
> possible, esp. in Yorkshire-- Tha knaws tha's a gret fooil (Thou knows
> thou is (sic) a great fool) is something I've actually heard said).
>
> Paul Johnston
>
> On Tuesday, September 27, 2005, at 08:36  PM, James A. Landau wrote:
>
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>> header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
>> Subject:      Thee and Thou
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>>
>> My daughter posed the following question:
>>
>> My American civ professor was discussing how American English
>> dropped the informal 'thee' and 'thou' from our speech
>> patterns, and  thought it was strange that in such a
>> comparatively informal society, people  started referring to
>> each other by the more formal 'you'. Why did this  occur?
>>
>> - James A.  Landau