Posh English

Hello you guys! I wanna teach you some propper English.
Hey yo here we go:


Excerpt from Basic Faire Language Guide, The Living History Center
Renaissance Pleasure Faire


Contractions:
T'was, T'is, is't, e'en, o'er, ne'er, twere.


Don't use modern contractions, say both words instead.
Don't use "ain't" It wasn't developed yet.
Don't use modern Americanisms, such as Yeah, Sure, Nope, Uh-huh, Y'know, Okay.
Never use sh for st sounds. Americans tend to tush a t followed by a y or i sound into a ch sound so Got you becomes Gotcha. Don't do this, on the whole Elizabethans spoke more slowly and clearly than we do.
The next hurdles is Thee/Thou versus You: English at one time had it's formal and informal modes. The formal, used to one's social superiors and strangers to whom one wished to be polite was 'You'. The informal, used to one's intimates of social inferiors was 'thou'.


"How are you?" can appropriately be said to your parents, your employer, any noble person, and person you are flattering and horses, because they are noble creatures.
Whereas, "How art thou?" would be appropriately said to your spouse, your close friends, your children, your servants, any person you are insulting, inanimate objects and God.
If you think about this list, you can see that nobody ever, calls the Queen thou; and she doesn't have to call anyone you --- unless she talks to her horse.


Don't make the mistake of assuming that thee and thou are only two different forms of the same word, they aren't. Thou is a subject of sentences, as in "What hast thou done?" and thee is the object of sentances, as in "I shall tell thee a secret."


And what about all those antique verb forms -- those ost, est and eth words? Well here are some examples:


I do
Thou Dost
You do.
He/She/It doth (or does)


I love
Thou Lovest
You love.
He/She/It Loveth


I have loved
Thou hast loved
You have loved.
He/She/It hath loved


As you can see, the antique verbs are used with the second person intimate, the third person -- never with the first person.


Here's the possessive form:
Thy is a possessive used before a constant, "Thy rod, thy staff"
Thine is the possessive used before words beginning with a vowel, "Thine eyes."


The same rules as above apply to my and mine.


The possesive for You doesn't change it is "Your."
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Source: AKERS, Kate. _Gailsden_. Proper Pronouns. Online. http://www.oseda.missouri.edu/~kate/guardians/gailsden/thees.html. 28th August 2001.

Let us have a little look:

There, thou hast thine eyes," said Death; "I fished them up from the lake, they shone so bright; I knew not they were thine. Take them again, they are now brighter than before; now look down into the deep well close by; I shall tell thee the names of the two flowers thou wouldst have torn up, and thou wilt see their whole future life--their whole human existence: and see what thou wast about to disturb and destroy."


(Hans Christian Andersen>The Story Of A Mother )

Venus ,

You don't honestly think that thou and thee should be reanimated and used in 'propper' English?!

Erm, the above was me.

I think all Americans and Englishmen should be familiar with these forms.
Where have all schools gone?!

> Case Singular Plural
> ------------------ ---------- -----------
> Nominative: thou ye or you (subject)
> Accusative/Dative: thee you (object)
> Possessive thine, thy your, yours


> "Thy" is sometimes used instead of "thine" before an initial consonant other
> than "h", similarly to the usage of the article "a" vs. "an".

The use of the second person singular has disappeared?
Of course not! It survives in old literature -- most
notably the King James Version of the Bible. It also persists in various dialects. Best known of these in American English are the Quakers, who use 'thee' and 'thou'. Several Central and Northern British dialects use a distinct Second Person Singular.

So you want to reactivate something that hasn't been in English for what?250 years?!That's ridiculous.

I'd like to learn a good british accent, and I'd like to know if posh english (referred to as RP) is good, or people will think I'm a jerk, and I should learn the Estuary accent instead? Thanks for an answer

And thanks for clearing up all the thou/thee/thine words

This is a great idea. I shall start speaking like that.

Thou art truly on to something there! Or should I address thee as you -- thou didst not indicate if thou wast nobility (or a horse).

Ya think I'm Alicia Silverstone!? I ain't her!

(I am not she :p)

Yea, verily, I say unto thee: thou speakest the purest nonsense!

Vlad,

Probably better not to learn either- neither accent is very well liked by the majority of Britons.

**I'd like to learn a good British accent**

VLAD......come to Scotland and let us impale you with a PROPER British accent........the only one that matters....think of all those lovely English people you could confuse and bewilder......before the sun rises. :-)

Come to California. We have the best accent!