Visit The *EVEN NEWER* Barrow-Downs Photo Page |
08-22-2007, 02:29 PM | #41 |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
|
Not s'much o' the 'owd'.... 'ah've bin nown tu use 'thee's' & 'tha;s' mesen....
|
08-23-2007, 09:03 AM | #42 | |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
|
Yep, tykes of all ages still use thee and thou. In Sheffield though they use dee and dar - hence the unpleasant but quite funny nickname Deedars. This is interesting as something I was reading the other day about Scousers suggested that they do the same thing, and it's due to the Irish influence; there is little to no use of 'th' in Irish Gaelic, they use 'dh' instead, hence Dublin. You also hear the difference in the contrast between the Liverpudlian "maidering' and the Mancunian "maithering".
It's not just restricted to Yorkshire and Liverpool though, as plenty of Lancastrians still use words like "tha" as in "Hast tha had tha tea?" I reckon that in Tolkien's day you'd still have been able to hear plenty of West Midlands locals theeing and thying. So I'm not so sure that 'thee' and 'thy' are 'formal' in English as spoken by British people at all, as they still have pretty much entrenched usages amongst Northerners and the working classes. Quote:
However in schools, students right up to the age of 18/19 are expected to directly address their teachers as "Sir" or "Miss", never by name or horror of horrors, by first name! It was always a game for a class full of new pupils to try and guess what your first name might be.
__________________
Gordon's alive!
|
|
08-24-2007, 08:34 AM | #43 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,321
|
By contrast, apparently dating from the egalitarian Jefferson, faculty at the University of Virginia are always adressed as 'Mister" or 'Ms"- never Doctor or Professor.
__________________
The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
|
|