Just fyi, they finally pulled the plug on the ad campaign in 2011.
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Me focusing on the wrong thing: this would likely be a situation where ‘you’ would be proper, not thou. (Also, if ‘thou’ is appropriate, it should be canst. And hearest.)
It’s true that Verizon doesn’t run those ads any more.
But one of the OTHER carriers hired that spokesperson, and he now appears in THEIR ads.
Kamino Neko, what hit me was using “ye” as “you” in panel 1, but
“ye” as “me” in panel 2.
Yeah, there’s that, too. Though it would have been fine, IMO, if it hadn’t been for the ‘thou’ – an acceptable break in logic, for the sake of the joke…but since they needlessly changed the one part wrongly, everything falls apart for me/
“Hear ye” basically means “Listen up everybody!” So in the end he’s saying “Can you listen up everybody now?” Let’s face it. This cartoon is a train wreck.
More likely “Can ye”, because it’s plural. Or even more likely, because use of auxiliary words like “do” and “can” is a relatively recent thing, “Hear ye me now?” But then we’ve lost sight of the thing it’s supposedly making fun of.
Can you, not can ye. Move it to the first person. ‘Can I’ vs ‘can me’.
I thought the crier was responding directly to the person who said “WHAT” in panel 1, in which case “Canst thou hear me now?” would be correct.
cell towers of thine.
Yep, it should be “canst thou”; doesn’t anyone know how to conjugate verbs into the second person singular anymore?
I don’t think it should be “hearest”, though. We don’t conjugate a verb coming after “can” like this. e.g. “Can I be of service?” not “Can I am of service?” (Or, more directly, “Can he hear you?” not “Can he hears you?”)
As for “hear me” versus “hear ye”, I think it’s just a pun.
Yes, the bad Elizabethan grammar is driving me crazy, too. It should also be “canst thou.”
It’s apparently a firm belief of many people that they way you tell a character is supposed to be “medieval” (or possibly Amish) is that s/he uses “ye” and “thou” and “canst” ALL the time, even in situations where they are incorrect.
It’s the same sort of assumption that the way you are supposed to realize a character is “some intellectual jerk who thinks he’s better than us normal folk” is to have said character use “whom,” even in cases when “who” would be correct (not that said “most people” could tell the difference). It’s like the old joke about the owl who attended Harvard and then started hooting “Whom Whom”! Ho ho ho.
Just shorthand for lazy minds. If you try to hard to make sense of it, you’ll go mad. Or, possibly “thou wilst go mad.”
Verily.
Although in fairness, Quakers using “Plain Speech” do use “thee” all the time, and incorrectly half of that time (since they don’t use “thou”).
larK — I wouldn’t say that the Quaker Plain Speech Thee is incorrect — I’d say that it follows a different use pattern than the early modern English use pattern. They knew, and know, perfectly well what they are doing, and are doing it deliberately. “Canst thou” is incorrect Plain Speech — correct Plain Speech is “Can thee”.
“Can thee” really grates on the ears of anyone who has actually read the Bible, which leads me to believe that Quakers never read the Bible.
What Mark said.
Plus, when you are deliberately trying to shape language, I think I’m allowed to deliberately push back — they aren’t really speaking that way naturally, but rather it’s an affectation so that they can say, “Well, I know I’m a million times as humble as thou art”. (Even Weird Al apparently couldn’t bring himself to incorrectly use the “thee”.)
Is it possible this comic is a recycled entry from back when that tagline was a ubiquitous annoyance? It appears to have a current copyright date but a minor change can legitimize a date change.
Quakers started using Plain Speech back before “you” became singular. And the switch to objective case at all times was deliberate.
And it’s not to claim that THEY are humble — it’s to claim that YOU are. They were radically egalitarian, ignoring class distinctions, and deliberately addressing their “social betters” familiarly. That’s why people kept killing them: because they were aggressively for human rights and equality, in ways that would undermine monarchies and things like that.
They knew what they were doing, and it was supposed to draw attention to itself, because it was — and is, in those few people who occasionally still use it — a way to undermine hierarchy.
I have mentioned before that one of the Colonial Williamsburg employees we became friendly with over the decades interpreted a woman who was a Quaker. We asked her (while she was in first person) about the use of thee and you. According to her (and she had done extensive study to be the specific person she was, in addition to what CW had for her, she would only use “you” to refer to God, she would use thee for people.
Billybob: lol !
She would only use “you” for God? Even in the Lord’s prayer? Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done ….?
Mark in Boston – Not sure, it is possible that Quakers do not say the Lord’s Prayer, but that is what she told us – and she while she was talking in first person, she knew us and that we were asking a serious question for future reenacting reference. Some of the interpreters at CW, especially now since there has a been a number of staff and hmmm, what’s a good term – directional? changes towards more of a show than meeting a person of the past. They used to be character interpreters by title, now they are actor interpreters by title and a lot of the older really good ones are gone – pushed out to a great extent.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Me focusing on the wrong thing: this would likely be a situation where ‘you’ would be proper, not thou. (Also, if ‘thou’ is appropriate, it should be canst. And hearest.)
It’s true that Verizon doesn’t run those ads any more.
But one of the OTHER carriers hired that spokesperson, and he now appears in THEIR ads.
Kamino Neko, what hit me was using “ye” as “you” in panel 1, but
“ye” as “me” in panel 2.
Yeah, there’s that, too. Though it would have been fine, IMO, if it hadn’t been for the ‘thou’ – an acceptable break in logic, for the sake of the joke…but since they needlessly changed the one part wrongly, everything falls apart for me/
“Hear ye” basically means “Listen up everybody!” So in the end he’s saying “Can you listen up everybody now?” Let’s face it. This cartoon is a train wreck.
More likely “Can ye”, because it’s plural. Or even more likely, because use of auxiliary words like “do” and “can” is a relatively recent thing, “Hear ye me now?” But then we’ve lost sight of the thing it’s supposedly making fun of.
Can you, not can ye. Move it to the first person. ‘Can I’ vs ‘can me’.
I thought the crier was responding directly to the person who said “WHAT” in panel 1, in which case “Canst thou hear me now?” would be correct.
cell towers of thine.
Yep, it should be “canst thou”; doesn’t anyone know how to conjugate verbs into the second person singular anymore?
I don’t think it should be “hearest”, though. We don’t conjugate a verb coming after “can” like this. e.g. “Can I be of service?” not “Can I am of service?” (Or, more directly, “Can he hear you?” not “Can he hears you?”)
As for “hear me” versus “hear ye”, I think it’s just a pun.
Yes, the bad Elizabethan grammar is driving me crazy, too. It should also be “canst thou.”
It’s apparently a firm belief of many people that they way you tell a character is supposed to be “medieval” (or possibly Amish) is that s/he uses “ye” and “thou” and “canst” ALL the time, even in situations where they are incorrect.
It’s the same sort of assumption that the way you are supposed to realize a character is “some intellectual jerk who thinks he’s better than us normal folk” is to have said character use “whom,” even in cases when “who” would be correct (not that said “most people” could tell the difference). It’s like the old joke about the owl who attended Harvard and then started hooting “Whom Whom”! Ho ho ho.
Just shorthand for lazy minds. If you try to hard to make sense of it, you’ll go mad. Or, possibly “thou wilst go mad.”
Verily.
Although in fairness, Quakers using “Plain Speech” do use “thee” all the time, and incorrectly half of that time (since they don’t use “thou”).
larK — I wouldn’t say that the Quaker Plain Speech Thee is incorrect — I’d say that it follows a different use pattern than the early modern English use pattern. They knew, and know, perfectly well what they are doing, and are doing it deliberately. “Canst thou” is incorrect Plain Speech — correct Plain Speech is “Can thee”.
“Can thee” really grates on the ears of anyone who has actually read the Bible, which leads me to believe that Quakers never read the Bible.
What Mark said.
Plus, when you are deliberately trying to shape language, I think I’m allowed to deliberately push back — they aren’t really speaking that way naturally, but rather it’s an affectation so that they can say, “Well, I know I’m a million times as humble as thou art”. (Even Weird Al apparently couldn’t bring himself to incorrectly use the “thee”.)
Is it possible this comic is a recycled entry from back when that tagline was a ubiquitous annoyance? It appears to have a current copyright date but a minor change can legitimize a date change.
Quakers started using Plain Speech back before “you” became singular. And the switch to objective case at all times was deliberate.
And it’s not to claim that THEY are humble — it’s to claim that YOU are. They were radically egalitarian, ignoring class distinctions, and deliberately addressing their “social betters” familiarly. That’s why people kept killing them: because they were aggressively for human rights and equality, in ways that would undermine monarchies and things like that.
They knew what they were doing, and it was supposed to draw attention to itself, because it was — and is, in those few people who occasionally still use it — a way to undermine hierarchy.
I have mentioned before that one of the Colonial Williamsburg employees we became friendly with over the decades interpreted a woman who was a Quaker. We asked her (while she was in first person) about the use of thee and you. According to her (and she had done extensive study to be the specific person she was, in addition to what CW had for her, she would only use “you” to refer to God, she would use thee for people.
Billybob: lol !
She would only use “you” for God? Even in the Lord’s prayer? Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done ….?
Mark in Boston – Not sure, it is possible that Quakers do not say the Lord’s Prayer, but that is what she told us – and she while she was talking in first person, she knew us and that we were asking a serious question for future reenacting reference. Some of the interpreters at CW, especially now since there has a been a number of staff and hmmm, what’s a good term – directional? changes towards more of a show than meeting a person of the past. They used to be character interpreters by title, now they are actor interpreters by title and a lot of the older really good ones are gone – pushed out to a great extent.
It is what she said – not what I said.