Thee, Thou, Thine......

[William Schryver]

Any difference between our understandings of the second person pronouns is in the use of "loro". not "lei".

I'll just nod and drop it.

Lehi

Perhaps it is just a misunderstanding between us, then. I concur that "loro" is always the third person plural (along with "essi" and "esse" as you noted above--although those are rarely used in speech, but only in literature). My only point is that "lei" is also used in the second person singular, as the formal form. It is the equivalent of "ye" in archaic English.

[CV75]

Were one speaking to his own father 600 years ago in London, one would have employed the personal pronoun "thou," whereas if one were speaking to the king, one would have used the respectful "ye" instead.

(Is no one paying attention at all?!)

It does seem to depend on what era of English is being spoken as to whether "ye" is singular, plural, formal, informal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_%28pronoun%29

[ERMD]

My prayers in Spanish always "felt" more personal than my prayers in English, since I always prayed in Spanish using the informal "tu". Interestingly, in Argentina, the informal is "vos", yet Argentines use "tu" when praying. "Vos" feels more "base" than the intimacy associated with "tu".

For a few years after my mission, if I wanted to pray with special fervency, I prayed in Spanish. It just felt better.

[CV75]

"loro" "esse" "lei"

...(if I were in Hawaii or Mexico, these terms would mean something quite different!)...

[LeSellers]

Perhaps it is just a misunderstanding between us, then. I concur that "loro" is always the third person plural (along with "essi" and "esse" as you noted above--although those are rarely used in speech, but only in literature). My only point is that "lei" is also used in the second person singular, as the formal form. It is the equivalent of "ye" in archaic English.

Then we didn't disagree at all, we just didn't see what the other was saying.

Dumbledore said something like that when Harry was trying to tell him that Malfoy was attempting to kill him (the professor, not the Chosen One).

Lehi

[William Schryver]

My point was, I am not living 600 years in the past, I am living now, in 2011. And talking to Heavenly Father like, well, a father, suits me well enough. I don't think I need to use stuffy archaic English to have a spiritual moment with Him.

I'm sure Shakespeare would be surprised to learn that he was employing "stuffy" English when he wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor.

[LeSellers]

For a few years after my mission, if I wanted to pray with special fervency, I prayed in Spanish. It just felt better.

A Spanish friend of mine told me: "Speak to a man in German. Speak to a woman in French. But speak to God in Spanish."

He may have been biased, however.

Lehi

[David T]

I'm sure Shakespeare would be surprised to learn that he was employing "stuffy" English when he wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor.

William, would you agree that the general cultural understanding and usage of language legitimately changes over centuries? That something used centuries ago as 'common' could, through deprecation and separation of context, be used and generally understood in a modern context as 'Stuffy'? It seems you're being obtuse here.

I do not view Jacobian or Elizabethan English as a standard to which I as a 21st Century american should be held in everyday thought and discourse, personal and public. It is important to understand its context when reading and studying those texts, but not when using them in everyday modern discourse.

I would think of the term "gay" differently when read in Shakespeare than I would if I were to hear the word spoken today in the news. I may or may not not like this shift, but that doesn't change the reality of how the meaning and common understanding and usage has indeed shifted.

Edited September 20, 2011 by nackhadlow

[Nofear]

It must be nice to have time to worry about such trivia

If this bores, we cooouuuld continue the trivia/fun with the question of whether or not to capitalize the pronouns for God.

[mfbukowski]

If this bores, we cooouuuld continue the trivia/fun with the question of whether or not to capitalize the pronouns for God.

Hey- I'll put up a fight on that one!

I guess that comment was a little out of line, after I posted it I realized that here I take time to post on the subject anyway, while ribbing those posting.

Not horribly consistent!

[William Schryver]

They were a "modern" addition. Latin did not originally have personal (nominative) pronouns.

Again, that's what i heard from a reliable source.

Lehi

If you were told that, it is incorrect. But I'll bet it arises from the fact that the various verb conjugations make the use of pronouns redundant in many cases, just as in Italian. In fact, the Italian personal pronouns are very much descended from the Latin ones:

Ego ==> Io

Tu ==> Tu

Is/Ea/Id ==> Egli, Ella, (Lei)

Nos ==> Noi

Vos ==> Voi

Ei ==> Essi, Esse (Loro)

[William Schryver]

William, would you agree that the general cultural understanding and usage of language legitimately changes over centuries? That something used centuries ago as 'common' could, through deprecation and separation of context, be used and generally understood in a modern context as 'Stuffy'? It seems you're being obtuse here.

I do not view Jacobian or Elizabethan English as a standard to which I as a 21st Century american should be held in everyday thought and discourse, personal and public. It is important to understand its context when reading and studying those texts, but not when using them in everyday modern discourse.

I would think of the term "gay" differently when read in Shakespeare than I would if I were to hear the word spoken today in the news. I may or may not not like this shift, but that doesn't change the reality of how the meaning and common understanding and usage has indeed shifted.

I consider your posture and your post as entirely non sequitur to the discussion at hand: the meaning of the "thou" form in English. Perhaps you should avail yourself of this opportunity to read the wikipedia article to which I linked earlier. I think it would go far to disabuse you of the misconceptions to which you are clinging so resolutely.

Here's the link again, in case you missed it earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou

[cinepro]

Something that hasn't been brought up is the potential for the LDS insistence on SPS during prayers to lead to rote phrases and "canned" prayers as people feel limited in expressing themselves because of their limited knowledge of how to structure words and phrases.

William, would you agree that the general cultural understanding and usage of language legitimately changes over centuries? That something used centuries ago as 'common' could, through deprecation and separation of context, be used and generally understood in a modern context as 'Stuffy'? It seems you're being obtuse here.

I would think of the term "gay" differently when read in Shakespeare than I would if I were to hear the word spoken today in the news. I may or may not not like this shift, but that doesn't change the reality of how the meaning and common understanding and usage has indeed shifted.

If some apologetic arguments are to be believed, then the answer to your question would be "no, word meanings do not change over the centuries, and the original usage and meaning of a word should be preserved regardless of how people many generations later use that same word." You may understand the word "gay" to mean something different, but were the two usages being translated into another language, the Shakespearean usage should be the one used consistently, with no acknowledgement that the later usage might mean something different.

[William Schryver]

If some apologetic arguments are to be believed, then the answer to your question would be "no, word meanings do not change over the centuries, and the original usage and meaning of a word should be preserved regardless of how people many generations later use that same word." You may understand the word "gay" to mean something different, but were the two usages being translated into another language, the Shakespearean usage should be the one used consistently, with no acknowledgement that the later usage might mean something different.

Another non sequitur, since "thou" means the same thing now as it always did.

ETA: This might be a good opportunity for me to invite everyone to attend the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah. The fall season is nearly upon us: http://bard.org/calendar/index.aspx

In addition to two modern plays, they are also doing Shakespeare's classic A Winter's Tale.

Edited September 20, 2011 by William Schryver

[David T]

I consider your posture and your post as entirely non sequitur to the discussion at hand: the meaning of the "thou" form in English. Perhaps you should avail yourself of this opportunity to read the wikipedia article to which I linked earlier. I think it would go far to disabuse you of the misconceptions to which you are clinging so resolutely.

Here's the link again, in case you missed it earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou

What misconceptions? What do think I don't understand?

I understand its historic use, as described in the article. I understand that it is not used anymore, except in some small communities, and perpeturated in literature and stock phrases, as described in the article.

The discussion at hand is the direction for Modern English Members to use the grammatical archaic 'thou' form in English today. My position is that it is nonsensical for both reasons I've seen expressed for its use:

• The historically incorrect notion that the word is 'formal'
  
• The appeal to its actual historic familial usage, which is not relevant in modern day thought and usage among those who one communicates familiarly with.
  

If your position is, "Historically, this word meant (x)", then I haven't argued that.

If your position is "Thou" still means (x) by the general population, and that is what they think of or associate it with commonly when they use it or hear it toda - separated from historic texts - then I disagree very much with that based on a great deal of my own experience.

Edited September 20, 2011 by nackhadlow

[William Schryver]

/snip/ continuing non sequitur

As I said previously, you are free to pray as you wish.

You may even, should you so wish, advocate for others to pray in the manner you prefer. You can add it to the list of "progressive" ideas for which you desire to advocate. I will stand aside and observe with some interest the success you achieve in your attempts to mold Mormonism to conform to your enlightened perspectives.

[William Schryver]

If your position is "Thou" still means (x) by the general population, and that is what they think of or associate it with commonly when they use it or hear it toda - separated from historic texts - then I disagree very much with that based on a great deal of my own experience.

Incidentally, the meaning of "thou" has not changed, even if most people are ignorant of that meaning.

[Ahab]

As I said before, you are welcome to pray as you wish. I concur with you in that "I don't think God is a pretentious grammar cop who holds us to archaic forms for the sake of intellectual superiority." I don't believe anyone has suggested that He is.

It's not him that requires it. I think the idea started with Bruce McConkie, when he was an apostle, and it kinda stuck from that point on, although people in the day of Joseph Smith talked that way too because "old" English was more common back then.

Anyway, it's supposed to be something we do to show a distinction between our conversations with him, our Father, and everyone else. You may also have noticed that we still call him our Father in our formal prayers, instead of using the word/name/title "God", so we're simply using some other device in our speech/conversation to show him that we're trying to show him some respect by the language we use, itself.

In my heart I still know he's my Daddy, though, and no matter what happens I know he always will be.

[Cobalt-70]

"Thou" is not a more "formal" way of saying "you." It is, quite to the contrary, less formal. "Thou" is the familiar (although now archaic) form in English. It is the equivalent of "tu" in Italian and Spanish. It is the form one would use with close friends and family members. I think it is important to teach this concept to children when instructing them about the use of "thou" (and its objective and possessive forms: "thee," and "thine") in the context of prayer. We do it to emphasize our familiarity, our family relationship, with our Father in heaven; to underscore our unique relationship to Him as our Father.

Technically, that's true, but in practice almost nobody consciously uses the archaic "familar" pronouns because they feel they are on a first-name basis with God. Rather, they use the terms to create a formal distance between themselves and God. In modern English, the "familiar" and "formal" have switched places. This fact is emphasized by the fact that some general authorities periodically refer to their preference for this King James Version-style language, they say that using the "familiar" pronouns is a sign of respect for God. Such statements must be pretty incomprehensible to non-English speakers.

I don't really care whether or not people use King James Version-style English in their prayers, but if they do, I think they should be consistent. I hear a lot of what you might call pidgin Pilgrim: they use the familiar pronouns without using familar verb conjugations. If thou shouldst speak like a Pilgrim, thou mightest well conjugate thy verbs like a Pilgrim too.

Edited September 20, 2011 by Cobalt-70

[volgadon]

Were one speaking to his own father 600 years ago in London, one would have employed the personal pronoun "thou," whereas if one were speaking to the king, one would have used the respectful "ye" instead.

(Is no one paying attention at all?!)

Which is why one said "Your Majesty," not "Hail fellow well met."

[mfbukowski]

It's not him that requires it. I think the idea started with Bruce McConkie, when he was an apostle, and it kinda stuck from that point on, although people in the day of Joseph Smith talked that way too because "old" English was more common back then.

I don't want to wham you with a "CFR" but I find that interesting!

Do you have some references for that? Again- just asking - not a formal deal. I would just be interested in that.

[Tarski]

In my opinion, no one should be correcting someone else's language of prayer. That's not the appropriate setting for a lesson on the usage of "thou," "thee," "thine," etc.

However, I would like to use this setting to give a lesson on the topic:

"Thou" is not a more "formal" way of saying "you." It is, quite to the contrary, less formal. "Thou" is the familiar (although now archaic) form in English. It is the equivalent of "tu" in Italian and Spanish. It is the form one would use with close friends and family members. I think it is important to teach this concept to children when instructing them about the use of "thou" (and its objective and possessive forms: "thee," and "thine") in the context of prayer. We do it to emphasize our familiarity, our family relationship, with our Father in heaven; to underscore our unique relationship to Him as our Father.

I think this may be a case of a thing becoming its opposite. Thee and thou sound formal to us even though it is quite the opposite historically.

I think there is a similar situation with the use of the word "vosotros" in Spanish. This is very informal in Spain and used for example by children at play when adressing another group of children.

My wife, who is from Spain, refused to believe that in Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries besides Spain, ustedes is used instead of vosotros even among freinds and family members.

Now when we went to Cancun recently I took the opportunity to ask around among locals about this. It appears than not only do they not use "vosotros" in everyday conversation, they seem to only be aware of it from grammar books and literature and are more likely to hear it in church than on the street. So it seems that "vostoros" sounds VERY formal in some sense to speakers in these countries.

What should we make of this? Well, I say that the real sense of a word is found in its use and so indeed for us "thee" and "thou" are hyper-respectful or formal and so it is with "vosotros" outside Spain. Rather than it being a matter of a group of people using a word incorrectly, the thing in question has actually semantically evolved so that the formal/informal aspect has reversed. In this light I try to convince my wife that in this matter and other matters of Spanish grammar and pronounciation, it is NOT that Spain's way is the correct way. What is correct depends on which linguistic community we are talking about.

So viewed in this way, Mormons are really not so much incorrect about the formality of thee and thou, they just have different implicit conventions than the those of old English speakers and we can even see how it got that way.

(IMO)

Edited September 20, 2011 by Tarski

[William Schryver]

Technically, that's true, but in practice almost nobody consciously uses the archaic "familar" pronouns because they feel they are on a first-name basis with God.

I do.

Just because people commonly use "accept" in place of "except," or "affect" in place of "effect" doesn't cause the correct meaning of those words to be altered.

Rather, they use the terms to create a formal distance between themselves and God.

I have never done this. Nor do I believe that people in general do this. I don't believe very many people at all use "thou" because they are consciously trying to put a "formal distance between themselves and God."

In modern English, the "familiar" and "formal" have switched places.

No, they haven't. All that has happened is that the second person singular familiar has become obsolete. But then so has the second person singular formal ("ye"). At any rate, your statement is false.

This fact is emphasized by the fact that some general authorities periodically refer to their preference for this King James Version-style language, they say that using the "familiar" pronouns is a sign of respect for God. Such statements must be pretty incomprehensible to non-English speakers.

I have heard some general authorities say things like this, and even some local leaders. It is unfortunate that they misunderstand the meaning of "thou" in the context of prayer.

I don't really care whether or not people use King James Version-style English in their prayers ...

Nor do I. Nor do any of my Italian friends. Nor, I suspect, does anyone else in the non-English speaking world. Nevertheless, it would be, in my judgment, good if everyone understood the meaning of the words they use to address their Father in heaven.

[Calm]

Such language can help us to create a sacred space to prepare us for encounter the divine.

I think it's worth the effort myself.

I also appreciate the symbolic quality imparted by using the familiar forms.

Edited September 20, 2011 by calmoriah

[Mansquatch]

When taking Spanish classes in high school and college I always thought it strange that they had familiar and formal ways of addressing people, but I never thought about thee and thou being the currently lost English familiar version. Thanks for shattering my worldview again Will.

It is very interesting and I am curious as to whether anyone might know why the formal "you" became the popular go-to format for English.

As for praying, I am fine with any form as long as you keep the swear words to a minimum.