thee's and thou's question

topic posted Sat, April 21, 2007 - 4:11 PM by  Jacquin
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I like to write stories for my own entertainment and hopefully my future livelihood, but in the one I am working on now has pirates in it.
And I was wondering where to use thees and thous.
I thought I had it right for a while, until I made sure today on the internet and got confused.
so, when you want to say ,
"Why would you want to do that?" but using thee/thou instead of you, which one would you use?

or, if anyone has an easy way to explain it, please share.
thank you very much.
posted by:
Jacquin
California
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  • Re: thee's and thou's question

    Sat, April 21, 2007 - 8:50 PM
    I would put it, "why wouldst thou wish (or desire) to do that?"
    I have an e-mail copy of a very involved explaination as to the correct usage of the formal usage of thee, thou and you - but the hardest part I have to remember is that to address someone as 'Thou' means you think they are of a lower station (or on exactly equal footing - like a dear friend) than yourself. If you are addressing someone that you want to suck up to, or is more important socially than you are... you would address them as "you".

    Dost thou desire to read my missive?
    • Re: thee's and thou's question

      Sat, April 21, 2007 - 10:16 PM
      I wouldst most love to read thy missive.
      I knew about the social statis of thee and you, I just am not completely stable on the thees and thous.
      grammercy for willing to help
      • Re: thee's and thou's question

        Sat, April 21, 2007 - 10:49 PM
        Thee, thou and thine are second person singular, familiar tense. use them where you would currently say "you" to a single person, with whome you are familiar. Never use it to your betters.
        • Re: thee's and thou's question

          Sat, April 21, 2007 - 11:17 PM
          I was actually more asking what the difference between thou and thee are
          because before I was just using thee and I realized that thou is the same.. just used differently
          so I wanted see if anyone could clear up my confusion between the two.
          thank you anyway, lee
          • Re: thee's and thou's question

            Sun, April 22, 2007 - 8:24 AM
            This is what was given me, and from what I gather - the simplest way to put it is - use THOU when you are speaking TO a person - and THEE when you are speaking ABOUT a person. But then there's the verb changes... Have fun!
            ==================

            When using the Second Person Familiar form of address.... Thou Shalt use "thou" when it is in the subject of the sentence, and "thee" when it is appears anywhere else in the sentence. For example: Thou art a varlet ("Thou" being the subject), I think little of thee ("thee" not being the subject but the object).

            When using the Second Person Familiar form of address... Thou shalt change the verb by adding an "est" ending when the subject of a sentence is "thou". For example: Thou runnest. Thou sleepest. Thou speakest.

            When Second Person Familiar (Thou) is used, the "est" verb endings are used in EVERY tense. Examples:
            Present tense: Thou runnest
            Past tense: Thou rannest
            Future tense: Thou shalt/wilt run


            When using the Third Person form of address (pronouns) ... Thou shalt change the verb by adding an "eth" ending when the Third Person ("He/She/They, It" is the subject. Examples being:
            He/She/They/It runneth, He/She/They/It sleepeth, He/She/They/It speaketh.

            When the Third Person form of address is used in a past or future tense sentence, do NOT get jiggy with the verb endings. Examples being in this case:
            Present tense: He runneth
            Past tense: He ran
            Future tense: He shall/will run

            Thou shalt also on occasion drop an Auxillary Verb in front of the verb, and give "it" (the auxillary verb) the funny ending instead of the main verb, as in dost for Second Person Familiar (Thou) and doth for Third Person (He/She/They/It). Examples:
            Thou dost protest too much instead of Thou protestest too much.
            Or
            He doth protest too much instead of He protesteth too much.
    • Re: thee's and thou's question

      Fri, July 25, 2008 - 9:06 AM
      Thou is the second person subject pronoun (used in place of you as the subject of the sentence: Thou art in heaven), Thee is the second person objective pronoun (used in place of you: It is not for thee to correct me), thine is second person possissive (used in place of your: Is this hand-writing thine?).

      Thou - subject
      Thee - object
      Thine - possessive.
      • Re: thee's and thou's question

        Fri, July 25, 2008 - 10:49 AM
        Another way to put it is, Thou is the second person equivalent of the first person I, Thee is the second person equivalent of the first person Me, Thy is the second person equivalent of the first person My, and Thine is the second person equivalent of the first person Mine.

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