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Ignorant expats

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  1. #1

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    Ignorant expats

    I keep seeing "me thinks" written on this site. The correct way to write this archaic expression is "methinks". For explanation, here is a piece of wikipedia:

    While the dative case is no longer a part of modern English usage, it survives in a few set expressions. One good example is the word "methinks", with the meaning "it seems to me". It survives in this fixed form from the days of Old English (having undergone, however, phonetic changes with the rest of the language), in which it was constructed as "[it]" + "me" (the dative case of the personal pronoun) + "thinks" (i.e., "seems", < Old English thyncan, "to seem", a verb closely related to the verb thencan, "to think", but distinct from it in Old English; later it merged with "think" and lost this meaning).

    The dative case also survives, albeit rarely, in the ethic dative, used to express one's interest in a matter. This only occurs with pronouns. For instance, in the sentence, "Cry me a river," "me" is used to express the speaker's interest in the action.
    (I did not want to type this out myself for fear of invoking Muphry's Law).

  2. #2

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    slow work day me thinks?

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  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by neither3nor4:
    I keep seeing "me thinks" written on this site. The correct way to write this archaic expression is "methinks". For explanation, here is a piece of wikipedia:



    (I did not want to type this out myself for fear of invoking Muphry's Law).
    And there is it... nevermind.
    Last edited by ewankho; 05-07-2012 at 11:20 AM.
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  4. #4

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    If only Daisy the trollop had shown a bit more interest in the arts rather than bun-warming, she would have known that Shakespeare used "methinks" in Hamlet back in the early 17th century with the now infamous line "The lady doth protest too much, methinks". Perhaps it was one of Daisy's ancestors that Shakespeare was writing about.

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  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by neither3nor4:
    I keep seeing "me thinks" written on this site. The correct way to write this archaic expression is "methinks". For explanation, here is a piece of wikipedia:

    (I did not want to type this out myself for fear of invoking Muphry's Law).
    Methinks youthink too much.

  6. #6

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    Considering the flock of posters who want to make frds with u or other ppl, I'd be sufficiently impressed that someone has a vague clue that "methinks" even exists, to get riled up by its misspelling.

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  7. #7

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    Geez, this is geoexpat for crying out loud, you don't come here expecting grammatically perfect prose or advice.

    Last edited by Watercooler; 05-07-2012 at 01:53 PM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by neither3nor4:
    I keep seeing "me thinks" written on this site. The correct way to write this archaic expression is "methinks". For explanation, here is a piece of wikipedia:



    (I did not want to type this out myself for fear of invoking Muphry's Law).
    Than me thinks your nor hear neither their.

  9. #9

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    People who write "frds" cannot be helped with a bit of typing on the internet.

    Quote Originally Posted by BaconBreadBaker:
    Than me thinks your nor hear neither their.
    Ouch, nice work. Reading that made my head hurt in precisely the same way it does when I eat ice-cream too fast.

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    You will feel better on the morrow.


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