Thee and thou and thy and thine are the second person, singular, familiar forms of pronouns in the English language. (Actually, thy is the possessive pronominal adjective,
but who cares.) Thou shouldst not be flitting between thous and yous unless thou art changing between singular and plural in thy address.
Back to the more modern second person, don’t just go throwing around thees and thous and ye and other ancient forms unless you know what you are doing with them. For those who are students of other
languages, such as German, French, or Latin, the concept for the proper use will not be difficult:
| Singular Informal |
|---|
| Case | Pronoun |
|---|
| Nominative | Thou |
| Objective | Thee |
| Possessive | Thine |
| Intensive/Reflexive | Thyself |
| PPA | Thy |
| Plural or Singular Formal |
|---|
| Case | Pronoun |
|---|
| Nominative | Ye |
| Objective | You |
| Possessive | Yours |
| Intensive/Reflexive | Yourself |
| PPA | Your |
As any student of languages can see, English has considerably reduced its former complexity in this area.
Perhaps we should go even further and say do not use the old singular informal second person pronouns unless you have a very good reason to do so. It has no place in modern
poetry.
