I want to bring back Thou!

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Please excuse the irrelevance of what I am about to say, but suddenly seeing the word 'thou' brought up a pet peeve of mine.

For God's sake, if you are going to try and be fancy, and use 'thee' and 'thou' in poetry/prose/god forbid whatever else you come up with, at least do it right.
If I see one more "Thee are so lovely"-type travesty towards the English language, I may very well vomit.

*breathes heavily*

There is a catch in this. If someone writes something non-standard, such as using thee, who is to say what is right and what is wrong? We do not know what the writer is trying to do. Maybe his writing is not supposed to be "standard, but slightly archaic" but instead is some peculiar dialect, or, even better, if it is supposed to be a "faulty archaic" to aggravate people.
(I have this urge to make everything into a joke.)
(Unfortunately, it is not a very popular habit.)

[Struthiomimus]

I'm on board. I also want to bring back the use of "kine" as the plural of "cow."

[Dreki]

I fully support this. If I could, I would do that. I keep meaning to write a short story using thou/thee to get in the habit of it. Then I keep forgetting.

If thou wantest to bring back these pronouns, then do so. Who is there to hinder thee?
(Is do so correct imperative then?)

I, personally, have difficulty using non-standard pronouns. The gender neutral pronouns (ex. sie/hir. I have a friend who uses ze/zan) are difficult for me, and those don't even effect verb conjugation. Thou/thee/thy/thine is even more difficult because I have to know the proper conjugation as well as remembering which to use when.

[YngNghymru]

I'm on board. I also want to bring back the use of "kine" as the plural of "cow."

And eyen.

AND WHILST WE'RE ABOUT IT, why not bring back the remnants of the case system.

Thou/thee/thy/thine is even more difficult because I have to know the proper conjugation as well as remembering which to use when.

The conjugation doesn't really differ. It's either -est or -st, with -st being, I think, generally more used in Early Modern English (when thou was kind of dying anyway). There aren't many irregulars I can think of - 'thou art' (or 'thou bist' in Somerset), 'thou hast', 'thou dost'...

[Dreki]

Thou/thee/thy/thine is even more difficult because I have to know the proper conjugation as well as remembering which to use when.

The conjugation doesn't really differ. It's either -est or -st, with -st being, I think, generally more used in Early Modern English (when thou was kind of dying anyway). There aren't many irregulars I can think of - 'thou art' (or 'thou bist' in Somerset), 'thou hast', 'thou dost'...

"Art thou" differs more from "are you" than "sie is" differs from "he/she/it is", though.

My point is that if I have trouble going from "he/she/it looked at his/her/its watch" to "sie looked at hir watch", I'm going to have even more trouble going from "you need to take your sweater" to "thou need(e)st to take thy sweater" because it effects verb conjugation as well. Not, y'know, a lot more, but a bit more.

[YngNghymru]

"Art thou" differs more from "are you" than "sie is" differs from "he/she/it is", though.

It's just an additional 't' on the plural form. And that was my point, there are a few irregulars.

My point is that if I have trouble going from "he/she/it looked at his/her/its watch" to "sie looked at hir watch",

Wait... what kind of an English native speaker says sie? I thought you were talking about Dutch or something.

I'm going to have even more trouble going from "you need to take your sweater" to "thou need(e)st to take thy sweater" because it effects verb conjugation as well. Not, y'know, a lot more, but a bit more.

Wait. You were actually planning on using 'thou' in speech? >.>

[Dreki]

Wait... what kind of an English native speaker says sie? I thought you were talking about Dutch or something.

It's a gender neutral pronoun in English. It might not be "proper" english, but it's used by/for people who identify outside the gender binary (some intersexed people might use it, but I don't know). It's also used by people who just don't like any of the current gender neutral options ('they' is plural, 'he' isn't neutral, 'it' is insulting, 's/he' and 'she/he' are weird, etc) when speaking/typing/etc.
Sie/hir is the most common one in my experience, and the first time I heard of it was over 5 years ago.

Personally I'm a fan of singular they, but since I know people who prefer other ones so I try to be respectful.

And, yes, I realize wikipedia isn't a reliable source of information- but it's a good jumping point and those pages have links to the real sources.

Wait. You were actually planning on using 'thou' in speech? >.>

I already said that I was planning on writing something using 'thou' to get in the habit of it. And when did I say that I planned to use it in speech?

[YngNghymru]

Sie/hir is the most common one in my experience, and the first time I heard of it was over 5 years ago.

Oh. I see. It's another one of those attempts to make English politically correct or something >.>

I already said that I was planning on writing something using 'thou' to get in the habit of it. And when did I say that I planned to use it in speech?

Because I wouldn't've thought it'd be a problem when you were writing.

[KingHarvest]

Personally I'm a fan of singular they, but since I know people who prefer other ones so I try to be respectful.

Just use singular they. You're going to run into problems with no one knowing what you mean more than 99% of the time using this "sie/hir" thing.

[Dreki]

Just use singular they. You're going to run into problems with no one knowing what you mean more than 99% of the time using this "sie/hir" thing.

Even with 'they' I have to explain that I'm only talking about one person and then I get a lot of lectures about proper grammar... I still prefer it, though.

And I only use something else when the person in question asked me to, and 99% of the time it's relevant is with people who expect or acknowledge other pronouns- so it's not like it's a problem to be using them.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I just want to say that the German pronoun "Sie" (formal 2nd person pronoun) doesn't have a singular-plural-distinction either. We also have the homophone pronoun "sie" which means "she" in the nominative and the accusative as well es "they" in the nominative and "them" in the accusative.

I have to admit: Sometimes when someone says "sie" to me, I'm really not sure if he is refering to me or to someone else, as the verb endigs are also equal - and I'm a native.

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

I, personally, have difficulty using non-standard pronouns. The gender neutral pronouns (ex. sie/hir. I have a friend who uses ze/zan) are difficult for me, and those don't even effect verb conjugation.

"sie looked at hir watch"

How is this pronounced?
The hir should sound like her, so what's the difference there?
The sie should sound like sigh, if the spelling is something to go by (die, lie, tie).
And ze/zan?
How large part of the English-speaking populations in the world (native and foreign) knows about these pronouns?
The commoner s/he seems also to be hard-uttered, since it changes the first sound in she. Would not sh/he be better?

[YngNghymru]

How is this pronounced?
The hir should sound like her, so what's the difference there?

Should sound like 'her'? I'd pronounce it [hir].

How large part of the English-speaking populations in the world (native and foreign) knows about these pronouns?

The cynic in me says two, including Dreki.

The commoner s/he seems also to be hard-uttered, since it changes the first sound in she. Would not sh/he be better?

I think in speech everyone says 'she/he' . I think most native speakers would find [S]/[s] and [h] hard to pronounce in a cluster.

[Dreki]

I didn't come up with these pronouns. I don't even like them for one reason or another.
I only brought it up because I've had a hard time getting used to using non-standard pronouns in the past, so it stands to reason I'd also have a hard time getting used to 'thou'. I didn't mean for everything to get off-topic. I'm sorry for bringing it up.

Can we please get back on topic- Wanting to bring back 'thou'?

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Don't be sorry, this was fun.

The historical usage in English made the number of occasions, where thou could be used, more and more restricted, until God was the only one addressed with thou.

If thou/thee and ye/you are returned as the normal pronouns, how would they be utilised? Would the difference be like Swedish, with only number distinction, so thou is used for all singulars and ye for all plurals, or would it be like German, with some singular ye usage according to certain principles?

[Dreki]

If thou/thee and ye/you are returned as the normal pronouns, how would they be utilised? Would the difference be like Swedish, with only number distinction, so thou is used for all singulars and ye for all plurals, or would it be like German, with some singular ye usage according to certain principles?

I've always preferred it as a number distinction, with 'thou/thee' as singular and 'ye/you' as plural. Others might have another preference.

[Guillem]

I've been reading D.H. Lawrence's Sons and lovers, and a couple of times I've come across 'thee' used in a context where I woudln't expect it at all, namely the speech of colliers' families from Nottinghamshire at the turn of the 20th century. Is/was it actually used? It was Lawrence's own background so I doubt he'd use it so randomly. I was a bit shocked but I know virtually nothing of northern English dialects... like Morel was calling her wife a 'bitch' and then I see this funny thee...

[Lexicon]

Thee, Thou, and even separate 2nd person forms like shalt wilt, lovest were still taught in grammar guides into the 1920's. However between the 1880's and 1910's they began fairly quickly falling out of use for most people and in the 20th century were probably mostly reserved for artificial higher registers. Also some dialects of England, New England, and eastern Canada have maintained it more, even into today.

[YngNghymru]

Thee, Thou, and even separate 2nd person forms like shalt wilt, lovest were still taught in grammar guides into the 1920's.

Really? O.O

However between the 1880's and 1910's they began fairly quickly falling out of use for most people

Pretty sure it was before then. In Shakespeare use of 'thou' and other archaic features like 'eyen' is partially stigmatised, and even then it was falling out of use - in Wuthering Heights, which is an early 19th-century novel and set in Yorkshire where the forms have persisted more, use of 'thou' seems to be restricted to one's own children when they're small (why cannst thou not be a good child, Cathy?).

[Lexicon]

I meant REALLY falling out of use. Like dropping like a brick. Much of it was already gone, but yeah...