Talk:they two
Latest comment: 8 years ago by Msh210 in topic RFD
RFD
[edit]
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I'm feeling SOP. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 00:15, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- I don’t know if there’re any senses that make this construction redundant. I’ve certainly never seen these used together like this. Why is it sum‐of‐parts? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 00:23, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Delete. Evidently SOP. This construction can be used with other numbers ("they three" and "they four" are attested, for instance) and with other pronouns: "we three" is famously used by the witches in Macbeth, "we two" is well attested, and "you two", "you three", etc. are very common even in non-literary contexts. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 00:36, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- I can’t remember the last instance in my life where I heard somebody say ‘they two.’ It just doesn’t sound right to me, like an amateur mistake. Normally people would say ‘those two’ rather than ‘they two’ (at least in my area). I think that it merits a usage note at they, if nothing else. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 02:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- It's either archaic or obsolete, but it's a syntactic construction, not an idiom. I just spent some time looking for the same construction with other numbers: "they three", "they four", "they five", "they six" and "they seven" all have at least 3 CFI-compliant examples in Google Books, in spite of a substantial number of false positives. There are probably others, but I didn't want to waste any more time looking for them. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:55, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- I can’t remember the last instance in my life where I heard somebody say ‘they two.’ It just doesn’t sound right to me, like an amateur mistake. Normally people would say ‘those two’ rather than ‘they two’ (at least in my area). I think that it merits a usage note at they, if nothing else. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 02:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Delete. Equinox ◑ 01:33, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Delete. Agreed, sum of parts; no special meaning and not a familiar phrase. P Aculeius (talk) 02:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Delete Syntactically archaic, lexically current; transparent. We should no more have this than have the two of them. DCDuring TALK 02:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Delete. Not even necessary as a translation target, since third-person dual pronouns in other languages can be accommodated at they. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:51, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- And delete. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Deleted per consensus and arguments here. Cf. talk:us two and WT:Tea room/2012/February#they two.—msh210℠ (talk) 18:40, 12 October 2015 (UTC)