Thread: Holy crap...

I like to sing the old Baptist Hymnals, but some of the words make me confused.
For instance, "We give Thee but Thine own...", "May we Thy bounties thus...", "And gladly as Thou blessed us..."
I figured out that Thy is your and Thee is you, but what about Thou and Thine?

Holy crap indeed

I'm guessing that Thou is the nominative form and Thee is the accusative/dative/whatever form, like the difference between "I" and "Me" or "He" and "Him."

As for Thein and Thy, I have no idea. But I'm guessing Thein is for singular and Thy for plural.

By the way, does "Thou" correspond to "Du" or "Sie"? Is it the formal or informal adress?

I've been singing these hymns my whole life. It took me a few years to figure out that "Thou" and "Thine" are possessive of "Thee." Like, "me" and "mine." Very old language, rarely used unless you go to some far back corners of the Appalachian mountain region (yeah, they still use old language forms, but that's a whole other research paper). You don't really need to know how to use them, but it is nice to understand them.

Originally Posted by Pravit

Holy cr@p indeed

I'm guessing that Thou is the nominative form and Thee is the accusative/dative/whatever form, like the difference between "I" and "Me" or "He" and "Him."

As for Thein and Thy, I have no idea. But I'm guessing Thein is for singular and Thy for plural.

By the way, does "Thou" correspond to "Du" or "Sie"? Is it the formal or informal adress?

Amazing! I though any native English speaker could at least feel the meaning of these words. It is so apparent from their usage!

'Thou' is a singular 'you', like Russian ты or German du. Thy is singular 'your', like твой or dein(e).

Thou shalt not not break thy promise == You shall not break your promise.

Apparently you are correct about Thee.

Thine is like mine, but in 2nd person ('your' singular). That is, it is basically the same as Thy; the difference is approximately the same as between my and mine.

P.S. Read Edgar Alan Poe (in original!) - this spelling was in use in his times.

This spelling wasn't used by Poe because they spoke that way in his time, but because he wanted to write as if he was telling ancient revered stories. Mark Twain's Prince and the Pauper is also written in this way, but all his other books aren't.
This spelling was used roughly until the 18th century.

thou etc. are only used now in reference to God - hence being found in hymns. They are also found in the bible and in set (oh there's that damn word again - guess what it means here) prayers. Normal prayers not read from books say "You"

And don't forget that a lot of language of that type was intentionally inserted (and not even consistently) into the 1st edition of the King James Bible for reasons of affectation, rather than because it was current usage. It was felt that "thou"/ "thee"/ "thine" gave the passages more gravitas, as Latin had done, than would be the case were it translated into English directly.

Thee and Thine are the very old way to say thou and thy. It was just easier to say thou and thy instead of thee and thine. There was a distinction between you informal and you formal and plural in the english language, and thee/thou was it.

I have noticed that nowadays, when we sing hymns with "Thee" or "Thou" etc, it is not used consistently. They will use thou in the first couple lines of a verse, then switch to "you" for the third. Drives me crazy, but nobody else seems to notice.

Maybe because 'thou' is singular nominative and 'you' is plural accusative? By the way, 'thee' is singular accusative and 'ye' is plural nominative.
Thou seest me.
I see thee.

Ye see me.
I see you. (plural)

Holy crap, the Moon Monster is risen! Legend says that once every twenty fortnights, the mysterious Moon Monster will pick an ancient thread to revive and add a completely irrelevant comment to, then disappear again...

да.. words such as 'thine' and 'thou' (mine and you) is associated with archaic English (Old English). You will see it often in the works of William Shakespeare and poet John Donne - literature from the old era (Elizabethan, Jacobean etc).

Thy and Thine are both possessives. The difference is that 'thy' is used before words that begin with consonants, and 'thine' is used before words that begin with vowels. Hence "We Give Thee But Thine Own."