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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 8 05 June 2008 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
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I read the post before on register switching and it reminded me of somethign I do with my mates. Sometimes we begin conversation with extremely formal English, the other person usually uses extremely formal English as well. It goes on like this for awhile as we both eventually laugh or chuckle a bit about it, and then normal register kicks in. We even use old words like thou and hast.
For instance How art thou on this splendid morning my dear friend? I am quite fine, thank you, how art thou. Oh, I am also fine. What have you being doing lately. Yesterday I played a spot of tennis. That sounds lovely. Yes, quite. One must remember never to take one's eye off the ball in this particular game of which you speak. Yes, much truth is bestowed apon us from between thine lips dear sir. or something like that. Does anyone else do this in other languages?? Edited by zerothinking on 05 June 2008 at 6:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JD Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 6166 days ago 36 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Finnish, French | Message 2 of 8 14 June 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
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I do this in Swedish with some people, and it can be very funny if you're skilled enough to pull it off. Interestingly, a friend and I use the old-fashioned "bror" (Eng. 'brother') to refer to each other, which was once used among close friends. We therefore (sort of) succeeds in the task of being informal in a formal way :). Or something...
I'm also fond of switching dialects to sound more like a snob, a redneck or whatever suits the situation. I do this in both Swedish and English (for example, "transforming" into Groundskeeper Willie all of a sudden, when talking about Scotland). Edited by JD on 14 June 2008 at 5:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 8 15 June 2008 at 9:49am | IP Logged |
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Yeh, I suspected this happened in other languages. It might just be a part of our modern mind-sets or it could haev happened since the time people were aware of older version of their language, since the advent of the written word. :)
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| virgilio Newbie United States Joined 5969 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 4 of 8 22 July 2008 at 4:02am | IP Logged |
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. Edited by virgilio on 22 July 2008 at 12:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6080 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 8 22 July 2008 at 6:06am | IP Logged |
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Any chance of a translation lol?
It's quite funny when you use "old English" - How art thou this beautiful morn etc. I have always wondered - You NEVER hear Thou, Hast and all these other verb forms around you, but somehow, you pick them up! TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6242 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes 14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 6 of 8 22 July 2008 at 6:54am | IP Logged |
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Isn't "thou" used in prayer, etc. a lot?
Secularly yours! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Azabache Pentaglot Newbie Germany Joined 5966 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish, Japanese, Latin Studies: French | Message 7 of 8 26 July 2008 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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Germans loving their language do this too, of course, actually quite often:
e.g. how to make someone close the door: Tür zu! Mach die Tür zu! Mach bitte die Tür z Kannst du bitte die Tür zumachen? Könntest du eventuell die Tür zumachen? Könnten Sie eventuell bitte die Tür zumachen? Würden Sie mir eventuell die Tür schließen? Würden Sie die große Güte besitzen, mir eventuell die Tür zu schließen? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6148 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 8 of 8 27 July 2008 at 5:05am | IP Logged |
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Shakespeare, perhaps?
I occasionally speak some "Olde English" with my friends for fun, (actually it's more like Nadsat from A Clockwork Orange, but hey, Nadsat does include pseudo-Early Modern English) Thou is actually the familiar term, so I wouldn't count it as formal. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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