Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28549248-20170304122637/@comment-28549248-20170310155154

The Lessons shall begin now:

Lesson 1

One of the most often-occuring confusions when it comes to Olde Speech is that between thee and thou. That of course is understandable, because modern English does not regularly have distinct cases of a word.

Cases are the different forms a word takes depending how it is used in a sentence. The nominative case answers the question of who or what and is used for subjects in a sentence. Accusative is the case that answers to the question of whom or what and is used for objects in a sentence. There are other cases (not all of them are always included in a language's grammar; Ancient Greek has five and Latin has six, for example), too, but these are the ones we're going to be mentioning here.

Thou is the nominative case of the second person singular personal pronoun and the second person's equivalent of first person's I.

Thee is the accusative case of the second person singular personal pronoun and the second person's equivalent of first person's me.

Thus, thou is used as the subject of a sentence, while thee is used as the object.

e.g. Thou lookest most handsome today. For that, I wish to give thee a prize.

An improper use of thee and thou follows:

"At the moment I am sending this, Sir Seton and I are on our way to find and rescue thou with the army of the King".

“Could thee give us directions to the palace?”.

Seen under the light of the previous clarifications, it is easy to understand why thee and thou are in wrong usage in the above sentences. Thou addresses the person who acts, while thee addresses the person who is the recipient of the action, to whom something happens. Another way to think about it is to think how you would write it in first person and then switch I to thou and me to thee.

Now, let's see if you can make it through a course of obstacles. Well, actually it's some sentences where you must fill out the missing words:

1. “Why, so that _____ can murder me in my sleep?”

2. “Talmid, ____ art an Artisan!" No one will know this one!
3.“We were invited here by thy King, the King Matthias, to investigate the strange disappearance of his daughter, and to aid his forces in driving back the Paradox Rogues that are threatening to take over and defeat ____”.
4. "I thank ____, kind sir".
5. Could ____ give us directions to the palace?".
6.“We hath accepted thy summons and are ready to serve ____ in thy struggles.”

No cheating by searching in Perpetual Doom. Not all of them are correct anyway.

Here are the answers:

No peeking!
Thou Thou Thee Thee Thou Thee

The lesson is now complete. Tune in for the next lesson on Thy and Thine.