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Post by JoeP on Oct 1, 2019 10:49:03 GMT
Not a thread, a tread.
It's trodden on all the old threads which is why no one is posting in them.
That's the only possible explanation.
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Post by kingedmund on Oct 3, 2019 2:43:50 GMT
What! So I tread here!
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Post by Mari on Oct 3, 2019 17:25:37 GMT
I will boldly tread where no one has trod before.
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Post by Moose on Oct 3, 2019 18:55:12 GMT
I tread, you tread, he treads, she treads, we tread, they treadeth, you tread.
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Post by Kye on Oct 3, 2019 22:01:53 GMT
Um, thou treadeth, (and sometimes she/he treadeth) but not they treadeth --they tread.
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Post by JoeP on Oct 4, 2019 10:11:19 GMT
Gotta preserve old English grammar!
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Post by JoeP on Oct 4, 2019 10:12:50 GMT
Although wouldn't it be he/she treadeth, thou treadest?
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Post by Kye on Oct 4, 2019 11:26:40 GMT
Not sure... I'd have to look it up again.
I imagine I'm the only one here who regularly speaks using the old forms. (One of my Sunday services uses the old Book of Common Prayer.)
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Post by JoeP on Oct 4, 2019 12:32:16 GMT
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Post by Kye on Oct 4, 2019 13:19:03 GMT
We still have this situation in French. I often use "vous" rather than "tu" these days because most of my conversations in French are professional, thus more formal. Apparently a couple of years ago my ex-husband was offended when I automatically used "vous" when I spoke to him, but I had just gotten out of the habit of tutoyer-ing anyone!
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Post by tangent on Oct 4, 2019 14:15:50 GMT
I imagine I'm the only one here who regularly speaks using the old forms. (One of my Sunday services uses the old Book of Common Prayer.) We use the Book of Common Prayer at our 8:30am service.
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Post by Kye on Oct 4, 2019 15:59:04 GMT
Ah! I was wondering if you used it too, tangent.
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Post by Mari on Oct 5, 2019 20:51:54 GMT
Dutch also still has the two forms, though here the connotation is more that one is for being polite, the other is more informal. There is also a sense of respect to the first one. It's used less and less though:(
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Post by tangent on Oct 5, 2019 21:34:56 GMT
Ah! I was wondering if you used it too, tangent. I too am familiar with manifold sins and wickednesses.
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Post by Kye on Oct 5, 2019 21:43:47 GMT
Luckily I have been given power and comandment to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins.
So there you go!
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Post by tangent on Oct 5, 2019 21:48:58 GMT
Ah, you win.
But, hold on, who absolves and remits your sins, being penitent of course?
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Post by Kye on Oct 5, 2019 22:01:53 GMT
I'm self-absolving.
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Post by tangent on Oct 5, 2019 22:15:25 GMT
Hmm.
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Post by JoeP on Oct 5, 2019 22:34:43 GMT
This tread has become unexpectedly profound.
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Post by ceptimus on Oct 6, 2019 11:51:06 GMT
Some dialects still use 'tha' as a form of 'you' but it's not really anything to do with formal/informal.
Tha shouldn't be treadin there - tha's gonna get hurt!
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 6, 2019 17:35:47 GMT
So...Shall I bring up the thorn in the tread?
JoeP raised the question of how 'thou' stopped being used. Well, at one time, English had another letter, thorn, that looks like b and p combined to make something of a 'preggers' letter, which represented the diagraph of 'th'.
So, when press-printed literature started to replace hand-reproduced written works, typesetting was dominated by Deutsche, which had no thorn, so no thorn letters were cast. When it came to replacing the thorn in printed English, typographers thought that the gothic 'y' looked similar to the thorn (a single letter that denoted 'th', remember?) and used it to replace the thorn. 'Thou' became 'you' in print. Why 'this' did not become 'yis', 'them' to 'yem', and so on, is beyond me....but, nobody has explained why heavy use of 'f' instead of 's' has disappeared, either.
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Post by JoeP on Oct 6, 2019 19:58:17 GMT
That does explain the incorrect assumption that ye olde worlde people used to say 'ye' instead of 'the' - because it was really þe put into print as ye.
I'm not convinced it explains the verbal shift from thou to you - as you say, there was no such shift from them to yem or this to yis - nor did thee become yee or thy/thine become yy (um....?) / yine.
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Post by JoeP on Oct 6, 2019 20:03:09 GMT
In short, sir, thine idea fallest flatter than a pancake.
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Post by Kye on Oct 6, 2019 20:17:25 GMT
I wonder if the dialect that would say: "Tha hast tread upon the thorn" would say the same thing if addressing more than one person.
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Post by Mari on Oct 7, 2019 5:40:55 GMT
Still doesn't explain why the sound of the ou changed between thou and you. But very interesting! I did not know that.
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Post by kingedmund on Oct 9, 2019 3:35:35 GMT
Never thought much of it but now I am. In a thousand years what will our languages look and sound like? Who knows but we will be a distant .... something. 😂
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Post by Kye on Oct 9, 2019 11:05:53 GMT
It doesn't take long for language to change. I was talking once to a woman who was 104 years old. She had a strange accent and I asked her where she was from. She was from the same place as me --Montreal, but she spoke the way they spoke a hundred years ago!
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 25, 2019 1:20:12 GMT
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Post by tangent on Oct 25, 2019 7:20:00 GMT
She had a strange accent... from the same place as me... but she spoke the way they spoke a hundred years ago Anything like Katherine Ryan?
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Post by JoeP on Oct 25, 2019 10:39:51 GMT
How old do you think Katherine Ryan is?
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