LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.06.03 (12) [E]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Ed Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.05.03 (09) [E]

At 03:14 PM 06/03/05 -0700, Mark Dreyer wrote:
>I have difficulty with the suggestion that 'Plain Speech'. originated with
>the Quakers.

This is a misunderstanding.  I did not mean to say that "plain speech" per
se originated with the Quakers, just the term.  It was the preferred
pronoun usage of the dialect of the majority of the early Friends who were
located primarily in the Midlands (as I understand it), who considered the
use of "you" to be some sort of innovation, used primarily in the
south.  Since it was more natural for them to use thee and thou, they
considered this plainspeaking, just as even today, people will consider
their own dialect to be a more direct and honest way of
speaking.  Obviously, the Quakers did not invent the use of thee and thou,
which, from what I read at http://www.quaker.org/thee-thou.html is or at
least recently, still used in some more northern dialects.  In other words,
the Quakers did not use the Bible as their model.  Rather the translators
of the Authorized Version tended (as did Luther in Germany and Jerome with
his Vulgate) to try to use an English that would be understood by the
common man, even if already the use of this form of pronoun was already
being frowned upon by more educated classes.  While your great grandfather
may have used it in a sermon (not an uncommon thing even in the mid
twentieth century) and the use still continues among many in prayer, it was
only the Quakers in North America who continued to use this form of speech
in normal communication, and some do still to this day (as I have witnessed
personally).

>'Plain Speech' such as I have heard it spoken is simply modern English in
>whichever dialect, but the 'you' is replaced with the 'thee'.

Not really.  Of course, those who try to imitate this speech think they
have it accomplished by just replacing the you with the thee, just as some
think that speaking High German with a Platt accent does the job or English
with a Scottish accent.

>My great aunt Cato married into a Quaker family & uncle Bancroft Clark knew
>very well & showed us kids how to use the older form, as in "I have, thou
>hast, he, she & it hath, we have, you have, they have." But, as he said,
>explaining as it were to us Dutchmen, "English is not spoken in that way
>anymore."
>That "you" is important. The plural was used as a deferential form, & some
>time before 'Plain Speech' can have come into being, drove out the familiar
>form, but that is by the way.

"Plain Speech" never "came into being", but evolved along with the rest of
English.  It is true that one will mostly not hear the form thou, but that
it is never used is incorrect, because I have heard it.  It is true that
the form "thee knows" is ungrammatical, which is not denied by any Quaker
that I have ever known.

Interestingly, I knew two sisters who grew up in a Quaker home, and
whenever they would fight, they were required by their mother to only use
plain speech.  It's actually very effective - you might try it some
time.  Maybe we could require the adoption of this form whenever there are
"misunderstandings" on this List.

Of course, while these forms have otherwise for all intents and purposes
"disappeared" from "common speech", it would be a very small group of newer
speakers of the language that would not "understand" them, either in
writing or if used by someone.  If thee catches my drift.

Plain speech actually implied much, much more than a pronoun preference,
but a preference to give plain and simple testimony.  The Quakers were
responsible for ultimately ridding the courts of the requirement for oaths,
giving all English speaking courts the option of tendering an "affirmation"
on a witness.  It is always interesting to be in a courtroom and witnessing
a Moslem or Hindu putting their hand on a Bible, and swearing by it........

There's another good article on this aspect at
http://www.quaker.org/thee-thou.html.

"At last one woman asked a question out of Peter, What that birth was,
viz., a being born again of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God, that
liveth and abideth for ever? And the priest said to her, "I permit not a
woman to speak in the church"; though he had before given liberty for any
to speak. Whereupon I was wrapped up, as in a rapture, in the Lord's power;
and I stepped up and asked the priest, "Dost thou call this (the
steeple-house) a church? Or dost thou call this mixed multitude a church?"
For the woman asking a question, he ought to have answered it, having given
liberty for any to speak.
But, instead of answering me, he asked me what a church was? I told him the
church was the pillar and ground of truth, made up of living stones, living
members, a spiritual household, which Christ was the head of; but he was
not the head of a mixed multitude, or of an old house made up of lime,
stones and wood."  George Fox, founder of the Quakers.

Ed Alexander

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