We finished watching “Friendly Persuasion” last evening, and although I enjoyed the film (more so now than when I first saw it) I was put off by the incorrect use of “Thee” as a subject rather than an object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turns out, this is historically correct:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“On a side note, I was initially puzzled by the depiction of the Quaker dialect using “thee”\u00a0but not “thou”<\/em>\u00a0in both the objective and nominative cases. Thus, for example, where in the King James Bible we might read “Thou art the man,” the Quakers in\u00a0Friendly Persuasion<\/em>\u00a0would say “Thee is the man.” (Example: “When thee asks or suggests, I am putty in thy hands, but when thee forbids, thee is barking up the wrong tree.”) I was even more puzzled to learn that this seemingly ungrammatical usage goes back to the source novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “However, I have since learned from an\u00a0online article by Cheratra Yaswen<\/a>\u00a0that this usage is apparently historically correct: In at least some times and places, Quakers did adopt the practice of using “thee” rather than “thou” regardless of case.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n http:\/\/decentfilms.com\/reviews\/friendlypersuasion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We finished watching “Friendly Persuasion” last evening, and although I enjoyed the film (more so now than when I first saw it) I was put off by the incorrect use of “Thee” as a subject rather than an object.Turns out, … Continue reading