My mother often uses words like "thou", "thy", and "thine" in everyday speech. A typical example is:
"Thou art a jammy bugger!"
She is from the north of England. I'm wondering whether this quirk of language is unique to her or if it's something to do with the area she comes from or possibly her age group.
She's in her late 50's and comes from Yorkshire. I am just curious, because I also picked up this habit, and now that I'm living abroad and talking to non-native English speakers it's struck me how strange it is.
Best Answer
I grew up in West Lancashire (near the Yorkshire border), and pretty well every one of my parents generation used thee, thou, thy and thine. The first three were sometimes combined into a multipurpose “tha”.
Along with this perseverence of the informal second person singular, the equivalent verb form was still often used, e.g. “where goest thou?” instead of “where are you going” and “what dost tha want?” instead of “what do you want?”.
It can still be heard in the Lancashire/Yorkshire region particularly, in rural areas.