Talk:thyselves

Usage

Historically, thou and its forms are only intended for 2nd person singular use. Doing a quick Google search of thyselves I noticed that it tends to be used jokingly in the plural. Should this be noted anywhere on the page? (I suspect that many speakers of Modern English don't know that thou was informal, let alone singular-only.) OED and M-W don't list this as a real word. Neither does the Wikipedia article on English pronouns. I would add something to the effect, but I can't confirm my suspicion with any hard evidence. --Afc0703 04:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

This can’t be real. Thy is singular, so thyselves is like saying "myselves" (let’s do it myselves), or "himselves"/"herselves" (let them do it himselves). Like myself, himself and herself, there can only be the singular thyself. The plural of thyself is yourselves. —Stephen 16:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

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thyselves

I don’t believe this can be a real word. Thy is singular, like my, and there is only thyself and yourselves. —Stephen 16:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

It's out there (with 1,220 b.g.c. hits), though they seem to be faux archaïque usages; this should get a {{non-standard}} tag. Note, also, (deprecated template usage) myselves, (deprecated template usage) himselves, (deprecated template usage) herselves, (deprecated template usage) itselves, (deprecated template usage) ourself (>¼M hits!), and (deprecated template usage) themself (etymologically unsurprising, given the use of singular (deprecated template usage) they and the precedent set by (deprecated template usage) yourself).  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 19:42, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer the entry to be deleted but that's me. If it's kept with {{non-standard}}, it should have usage notes. --Anatoli 05:14, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Keep. Under the assumption that thou = you, it's not strange that people construct 'thyselves' by analogy of 'yourselves'. However 'strange' that appears to some people, if it is used often enough it is still worthy of inclusion. Wiktionary describes, it does not prescribe. —CodeCat 09:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Keep. There are definitely enough (potential) citations. It's not archaic: "non-standard" seems right. Pingku 13:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Cited IMHO, and rewritten. I found that most cites are trying to pluralize still-common sayings, such as "physician, heal thyself" (now "physicians, heal thyselves") and "know thyself" (now "know thyselves"), or snowclones based thereon ("X, heal thyself", or even "X, Y thyself"). —Ruakh_TALK 16:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

• BTW, there are also a fair number of hits at google books:"thine own selves". From a quick glance-through, I'd hazard that most of these are basically legitimate (making the point that every person has multiple "selves" — though I still doubt that any of the authors would ever say "myselves"), but several also seem to be using "thy" as a plural. —Ruakh_TALK 16:10, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Passed. Thanks, citer.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)