Ye Olde Conflicted

I was going to write a post (a short post, but whatever) saying "Hey people, if you want to imitate the archaic style, at least do it properly." In fact, to give my first impulse, here's one way I feel.

If you're going to use "thee' and "thou" and "wouldst" and so on, at least use them right. "Thee" and "thy" are not interchangeable. Adding "est" to the end of a verb when it's not proper to do so throws me off. Basically, it's like pirate-talk; if you use a pirate turn of phrase, at least use it in the way a pirate would. Don't tell me to "swab the mainbrace." Unless you're intentionally trying to do it badly, and then I guess none of this applies to you.

But see, thing is, that's me being nitpicky, and possibly wrong, because archaic English had way fewer rules than we do now. For one thing, spelling was loose as... yes, well, it was loose. Shakespeare regularly made up words. Chaucer too. Basically, while there were some rules, there weren't that many, so anything you do might be right, or at least not incorrect (largely because there are no rules governing it).

So I was conflicted.

Then I realized what it's really about: style. I'm not demanding that you hew to an ancient style guide, because there wasn't one for the most part. I'm saying, "Hey, if you're going to write comedy pastiche, write it well." So to those who are curious: thee is in the objective, so if you wanted to say "Can I hit you on the head with my ax?" you would say, "Canst I hit thee on the head with mine axe." See, that's possibly not any more according to the rules than anything else, but it sounds better. Thy is like my: it's a possessive. Just as you wouldn't write, "Jimmy went with my to the store," so you wouldn't write, "The pirate hit thy on the head with his axe," (we know, of course, that you'd use, "thee," right?). I'm not going to get into the rules for using the "f" thing in place of an "s." If you say "my" or "thy" and then continue to a word which starts with a vowel, you should probably change it to "mine" or "thine." Don't add "est" or "eth" to every single verb (and there are probably rules here that could be made, but I'm not going to make them because I'm not totally secure on them, I just know what sounds right).

Basically, it's funnier if it sounds right, and it only sounds right if you follow rules which may be anachronistic, but which will result in a better product. Don't overplay it for yucks. Do it right and people will be impressed (plus the laughs will come from the content, not the way you present it) (plus plus people will be able to understand it, which many times is tough if it's been ye-olde-fied too severely).

That's all.