Taking Poorly to Being Thoued?

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How dost thou feel about being thoued? Dost thou like it? Dost thou feel diminished among thy superiores, the barons and ducs of the reaume?

Thankfully, thou is become archaic, and most say you. However, in other languages, it is perfectly common to be thoued: the French tutoyer, the German duzen, the Spanish tutear. What dost thou think?

(Corrected inaccurate usage of 'doth' where 'dost' should have been used, thanks to Callista.)

Last edited by NeantHumain on 25 Sep 2008, 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

I hate being touched.

I'm like, "keep your goddamn hands to yourself!! !"

I'm conflicted about it. I love the sound of 'thou', but I like the simplicity that comes with the simple 'you.' When I am speaking in foreign languages, I never know when it is appropriate to use the familiar term or the formal one. When does 'Sie' become 'du?' When does 'usted' become 'tu'?

Huh?

Me thinks thou protests too loudly.

Doth

Me thinks thou doth like correcting me.

It's actually "dost"...

The new repetitive line in my head...

thou thee thy thine...thou thee thy thine...thou thee thy thine...thou thee thy thine...

Now I won't be able to sleep.

What dost thou think of that?

Not bothered by it, but then again my only exposure to being 'thoued' is among some of the older Quakers who still keep to that tradition, and they do it to everyone. (They used to get in trouble -- legal trouble, even -- for 'thouing' their 'betters' in society, their whole point was that they believed everyone was equal in the eyes of God, and thus differentiating 'you' and 'thou' was adhering to an artificial hierarchy that ought not to exist. Other people thought they were being put down, and got extremely offended.) Of course, today, that is no longer needed since everyone is 'you', so very few still do it. Just like 'plain dress' was originally supposed to mean blending into the society that clothing came from, but persisted hundreds of years past when that clothing would make you do anything but stick out.

I have never been addressed as thou, not even by Quakers, but if I were I think I would like it.

I thought Thou was supposed to be FORMAL! If it isn't, then WHOOPS! Germans are starting to move away from formal, to tu. Danish have ALREADY moved to DU. When I said things like "Hvordan har De det?", it was viewed as overly formal.

They have the same thing in Hungarian, Maga...and it isn't so bad if it's coming from a kid, or a shopkeeper. If it's from a stranger it isn't so bad, either. It's a way a keeping from being overly familiar.

If you grow up with one of these languages it makes perfect sense, and you innately know when to use it.

On the whole it doesn't bug me. But in English it would be weird as it isnt' used anymore.

I was born in Yorkshire, UK, where a lot of people would use it all the time, although it was pronounced "tha" rather than "thou." Parents and teachers taught us that it was wrong, but the kids used it all the time when the Big People weren't listening. It's probably fallen out of use there now.

I've got mixed feelings about bringing it back - it can imply superiority but also it can imply familiarity and fondness. I'd probably have trouble using it appropriately.

I've sometimes felt I'd do better socially if everybody spoke middle-class Victorian-style English though. Or Shakespearian English. Don't know why exactly. If it really happened that way, I'd probably have even more trouble saying the right thing at the right time. But I do find some Victorian books a lot easier to read than modern ones. My father used to say he thought the Victorians had a clarity of words that doesn't happen these days.

I totally agree with the Quakers using it as a social levelling device. I love to subvert the pecking order.

oh. thought it was a misspelling of "touched". carry on.

Which goes to show you I'm not a native speaker of Early Modern (Elizabethan or King James) English!

Dost it be.