Re: curses & insults

On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
> > English had this for a while, too, using the old 2sg pronouns for
> > insult:
> >
> >         I 'thou' thee, thou traitor!
>
> One Quaker, in his memoirs, noted the abuse he'd received on account of
> thouing everyone (the Quakers did not believe in using the singular
> "you", they were very egalitarian).  He'd wrote about being beaten for
> thouing someone, and the person doing the beating shouted "Thou'st thou
> me, thou ill-bred clown?", he then noted "As if his breeding lay in
> using you to a singular".
Interesting.  I've heard Friends use "thee" as both subject and object;
when did this start?

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