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old hand
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THE MOST AUDACIOUS EXULTATION IN THE IMPERATIVE EVER SPOKEN BY MORTAL MAN.
AWAKE! THOU GREAT STAR. WHAT WOULD THY GLORY BE IF THOU HAD NOT THOSE UPON WHOM THOU
SHINIETH!
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And perhaps the most definitively human: Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
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Carpal Tunnel
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Anastrophe aside, maverick  , thank you so much for the double meaning of "may"! That had never occurred to me. I am counting the days in this snowy land until it's time to go a-Maying.
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old hand
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maverick , thank you so much for the double meaning of "may"May I add more may meanings? May Day, the international distress call, is really the French "M'aidez," or "Help me!" (Hey, that fits the original thread!) Then there's the Maytag repairman. When somebody shouts "Maytag" in German, he goes to a festival; when he does it in French, he goes to work!  Geoff the washed up
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Carpal Tunnel
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Let me call you Sweetheart!
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Carpal Tunnel
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My curiosity aroused, I've been searching through my print anthologies in an attempt to find the earliest recorded use of ye in any form. There is, of course, that long period of early New England dialect where ye was used most lavishly as recorded in (among other works) Melville's Moby Dick and O'Neill's play Desire Under the Elms. Good colloquial examples are available in both these works. (I'm surprised wow and Dr. Bill haven't chimed-in here). Also, there are many examples of ye's use as "the" in titles like "Ye Olde Tin Shoppe," etc. So far I have these early examples (and, of course, the famous town crier's call, "Hear ye! Hear ye!").
an excerpt from the poem WISHES, TO HIS (SUPPOSED) MISTRESS
by Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)
"Meet you her, my wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye called my absent kisses."
An earlier example comes from the 1st verse of an anonymous song/ballad attributed to the ancient roving bards (circa the year 1000?...pre-dating Chaucer, anyway):
TOM O'BEDLAM'S SONG
"From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands by the naked man
In the book of moons, defend ye,
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from yourselves with Tom,
Abroad to beg your bacon."
There is also the Irish ballad, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye."
But, by far, the most curious and intriguing specimen comes from ol' Rabbie Burns (1759-1796),
SONG: GREEN GROW THE RASHES
5th Verse
"For you sae douce, ye sneer at this;
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O;
The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,
He dearly loved the lasses, O."
warl': world
Note Burns uses ye in the same sentence as you, and then again in contraction form!
Robert Herrick's is, of course, another of the earliest examples.
If anyone can figure out the pattern to all these interchangeable-seeming YEs and YOUs
please ring in!
So far no YEs in any form in Chaucer, Skelton, or Spenser...but that could be due to translation from olde and middle English.
If anyone wants or thinks we should take this to a new thread for further discussion, I'd be glad to paste it over.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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The only thing that comes to mind that even remotely resembles "ye" for anything other than "you" or "your" is "yea" as in "Yea, though I walk in the Valley of the Shadow of Death..." but that's altogether different.
I wonder whether the confusion may have errupted over "ye" being the same as "thee"--and then consequently confused with "ye" for "the"? Just a theory here.
WW
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"ye" being the same as "thee"
Yeeahbutİ ye is nominative; thee is dative/accusative.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeeahbutİ ye is nominative; thee is dative/accusative.
Soooooo. Ye may get you elected. Thee may get you imprisoned for a certain length of time?
BTW, ye must also be vocative. Hear ye!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Enough of these serious techicalities. Back to good old silliness!
"Hail, Freedonia!" sang the Marx Brothers, spooneristically.
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