Not to complain, but this has definitely come up as an issue the past two weeks in church services i’ve attended: language usage.
Now I understand that no one speaks with perfect grammar all the time. I am certainly guilty of bad english usage as much as the next guy, but if you’re going to depart from your normal pattern of speech while praying just so that you can sound smarter or more formal, I would appreciate if you do it correctly.
With that in mind, I thought we might have a refresher course on what certain archaic words mean, and their usage:
1. Thy or Thine – Thy and Thine are possessive pronouns in the genitive case. Correct usages: Thy word, Thy chair, Thy heart, thy grace. Incorrect usages: Thy art, Thy bring us, Thy formed the world. Thy should be used in place of the more common word “your” – and let’s not get started on the proper usage of “your” as compared to “you’re”. ex. sentence: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
2. Thou and Thee– Thou and Thee are pronouns, thou being the nominative case and Thee being the objective, functioning as both the dative and accusative. For those of you who are counting, the nominative case marks the subject of a verb while the objective case functions as the target of the verb. Correct usage: “We beseech thee.” or “Thou art great among all Gods.” or “Thou hast provided …”