Timeline for When can I use "thy" instead of "your"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 25, 2015 at 6:56 | vote | accept | Terve | ||
| Jun 23, 2015 at 12:24 | comment | added | Ben Kovitz | A very detailed answer (probably more detail than you want) is on Wikipedia. See the section on recent uses if you want to understand the very rare uses of thou/thee/thy in contemporary English. | |
| Jun 23, 2015 at 8:53 | comment | added | user6951 | I think the overall lesson here is that you will rarely to seldomly have to use it, but you ought to know what it means (or be able to look it up in a dictionary) if you come across it (and its sidekicks, thee, thou, etc) in various contexts, including the modern movie title you mention. Shakespeare is a kick ass writer (I say is because you encounter the writer when you read or hear his works), and the King James Version of the Holy Bible is still widely read and still has influence on English and in some people's daily devotional habits. | |
| Jun 23, 2015 at 1:59 | comment | added | Snowbody | Tolkien used it in The Lord of the Rings to represent speech that is simultaneously formal and extremely familiar, in the courtship dialogues between Aragorn and Eowyn, and Eowyn and Faramir. | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 15:36 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglishLL/status/613007781264781312 | ||
| Jun 22, 2015 at 15:09 | comment | added | Ben Kovitz | @Au101 Most natives should understand them because they're part of the main influential literature of their own language. References to commonly known literature are an important part of communication, as in the title of this movie. Anyway, we seem to agree about that. I've just been clumsily trying to say that a true explanation of the situation is helpful for an ESL learner, while a rule like "never" (referring to QPaysTaxes' suggestion) is misleading. | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 14:49 | comment | added | Au101 | @BenKovitz and anyone who recites the traditional version of the Lord's Prayer will use it - however most versions even of the Lord's Prayer now have "you"/"your"/etc. Although whether reciting a text counts as "using" it is surely a matter for debate. I agree with you that there are valid reasons to use them. I've actually read the KJV and after I'd finished I couldn't help myself from time to time :P You will also come across them in important cultural works. But it's worth making the point that these are all but lost and most natives don't use them or understand them - and why should they? | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 12:16 | history | edited | Ben Kovitz |
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| Jun 22, 2015 at 12:08 | comment | added | Ben Kovitz | @Au101 There are plenty of English words that most native speakers don't know, or don't know how to use correctly—I don't know, possibly the majority of words in the language!—but that doesn't mean you should "never" use them. They all have appropriate contexts. One obvious place where you say "thy" today is at a Renaissance Faire. Another time is when quoting the King James Bible. I've used it when "improvising" Shakespeare. There are probably many more appropriate times, limited only by creativity. Another: you could use it incorrectly on purpose to mock the Book of Mormon. | |
| S Jun 22, 2015 at 8:58 | answer | added | tom | timeline score: 7 | |
| S Jun 22, 2015 at 8:58 | history | protected | CommunityBot | ||
| Jun 22, 2015 at 7:25 | answer | added | ArgumentBargument | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 6:57 | answer | added | PJvG | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 5:45 | vote | accept | Terve | ||
| Jun 22, 2015 at 11:44 | |||||
| Jun 22, 2015 at 2:16 | answer | added | Michael Lorton | timeline score: 21 | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 2:06 | comment | added | Au101 | @Terve, the obvious point being that most native speakers do not know and do not care how these old inflections worked. Occasionally we might try and use them to sound old-fashioned or eloquent, or just to imitate Scripture. We very often get them wrong. I often see things like "thou shalt not cheatest on your girlfriend." It should be "thou shalt not cheat on thy girlfriend" and both "girlfriend" and "cheat" sound out of place | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 2:03 | comment | added | Au101 | As if you care, @QPaysTaxes (and as if to exemplify your point), I'm pretty sure it would just be "should thy novel...", because "thy novel" is the subject - not "thou". "Shouldst" is a valid form, though I'm not 100% sure exactly when you can use it. An example from the KJV though is "And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" (Genesis 3:11). Admittedly it uses "shouldest", but that's just a variant | |
| Jun 22, 2015 at 1:36 | comment | added | anon | Never. Never use it. At least, not in speech. Shouldst thy novel be written as one of Shakespearean times, you can, but not in colloquial speech. (Forgive my terrible Early Modern English. I'm not a native speaker.) | |
| Jun 21, 2015 at 21:50 | answer | added | StoneyB on hiatus | timeline score: 27 | |
| Jun 21, 2015 at 21:40 | history | asked | Terve | CC BY-SA 3.0 |