Thee, thine, thou and thy

To start the lesson on the pronouns thee, thine, etc., first I’ll explain pronouns really quick so you’re familiar with the different kinds. A pronoun occupies the same position as nouns and noun phrases. So “sister” can be replaced by “her” and “my beautiful antique vase” can be replaced by “it,” for example. The different kinds are as follows:

1. subject: I, you, he, she, it, we, they (Ex. He sits on the toilet a lot.)
2. object: me, you, him, her, it, us, them (Ex. Don’t hit me!)
3. reflexive: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves (Ex. She gives herself flowers often.)
4. possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs (Ex. The book is theirs.)

There are also forms within each category. These forms include the following:

1. number: Ex. I is one person but we is more than one person
2. person: first – the speaker or the group of people the speaker includes when talking (I, we, ourselves, etc.), second – the person being spoken to (you, yours, yourselves, etc.), and third – the person or people being spoken about (he, itself, them, etc.)

There are technically other pronouns, but this list works for what you need to know about pronouns to understand thou and its forms. The forms are as follows:

1. subject: thou (Ex. Thou smell foul.)
2. object: thee (Ex. I bite my thumb at thee.)
3. reflexive: thyself (Ex. Choke thyself! Thou cut thyself on a chicken bone?)
4. possessive: thine (Ex. I believe this jockstrap is thine.)

Thou and its derivatives are all used for the second person, the person being spoken to. That means that thou is roughly equivalent to you and its forms. Thou = you (subject), thee = you (object), thyself = yourself, and thine = yours. Technically, they aren’t equivalent for many reasons.

First off, thou and its forms were historically informal. That means people would use thou with friends, family or children. You was formal and used for strangers, people of authority, or out of respect. The reason why prayers like the “Our Father” and the Ten Commandments use thou is because the relationship between deity and devotee is personal and intimate. The Friends (aka Quakers) sometimes use thou among themselves because it shows closeness and familiarity. For those of you who have studied Indo-European languages, you’ll recognize this as being related to informal/formal pairs like the French tu/vous and German du/Sie.

Secondly, thou and its forms are singular. They refer to one person only. You nowadays can be used to indicate one person or many (which is where the forms y’all and you’ins come in). You used to have a plural subject form similar to the French vous and the German Sie (although technically these can be used in the singular as well). The old plural subject pronoun for you was ye, now used for effect just like thou. So thou was singular like tu and du are singular/informal in their languages.

Finally, the use of these pronouns is very specific. They’re really only used in ecclesiastical or literary language, sometimes among the Quakers. Otherwise, thou and its forms are used for effect. A lot of people use them when trying to sound formal, but they were originally informal. Now, they are simply archaic, and as a result, most people are unsure as to their use. They’re popular when trying to sound old or historic or even Shakespearean, but other than that, they’re really just not useful, and it’s not all that useful knowing how to use them. Most people simply mix and mess them up, and since they’re archaic and out-dated, who cares? Play with them and have fun. It’s not like they’re going to make a come-back anytime soon.

For those of you who may have (for some odd reason) noticed, there is also the possessive determiner thy, which is not a pronoun. Instead, it is used before a noun to show possession, like in “Thy towel is smelly.” Just like a and an, if thy is used in front of a word that starts with a vowel sound, it changes to thine. So instead of “thy apple,” it would be “thine apple” just like you would say “an apple” rather than “a apple.” It’s easy to see why thy and thine can be confusing because both are possessive but only thine, can be used as a possessive pronoun. So that’s thy lesson. Go spend the rest of thine evening enjoying something fun and of interest to thyself. Thou are dismissed!