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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Linguistics Studies
Quakers
Is it true that Quakers formerly used the "thou" pronoun even in everyday conversation, as "Thou art my friend", but now use "thee" as the subject and put the verb in the 3rd person singular, as "Thee is my friend"? Thank you.
Top answer
Anonymous Is it true that Quakers formerly used the "thou" pronoun even in everyday conversation, as "Thou art my friend", but now use "thee" as the subject and put the verb in the 3rd person singular, as "Thee is my friend"? Thank you. No.
- Anonymous Is it true that Quakers formerly used the "thou" pronoun even in everyday conversation, as "Thou art my friend", but now use "thee" as the subject and put the verb in the 3rd person singular, as "Thee is my friend"?
- Thank you.
- No.
- I went to a Quaker high school, and we spoke everyday English.
- In the time of William Penn, and perhaps among present day isolated Amish communities, they used these old forms of you.
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4 Answers
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Anonymous Is it true that Quakers formerly used the "thou" pronoun even in everyday conversation, as "Thou art my friend", but now use "thee" as the subject and put the verb in the 3rd person singular, as "Thee is my friend"? Thank you.No.
I went to a Quaker high school, and we spoke everyday English.
In the time of William Penn, and perhaps among pr
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AlpheccaStarsBut "Thou" is subject case of 2nd person singular, and "thee" is object case.I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere that, contrary to expectation, the Quakers used "thee" for both cases.
CJ
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CalifJimI seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere that, contrary to expectation, the Quakers used "thee" for both cases.It seems to be a regional variation.
As in other dialects, thee came to be used by many Quakers, at least in the New York State area, in both the nominative and the accusative cases.
Thee is supposed to be the objec
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