How would Shakespeare have said "Thank you"? Can't decide if it is thee or thou, since it isn't really a sentence.
Learn English – Thank thou or Thank thee
early-modern-englishgrammatical-casepolitenessshakespeare
early-modern-englishgrammatical-casepolitenessshakespeare
How would Shakespeare have said "Thank you"? Can't decide if it is thee or thou, since it isn't really a sentence.
Best Answer
On a quick look through the concordance, it appears that Shakespeare rarely wrote Thank you and never Thank thee without a subject. He often wrote I thank you and we thank you (and forms such as to thank thee and shall thank thee); but for a shorter form without a subject he usually used Thanks.
Thank thou would be ungrammatical, unless it was followed by an object, and would then be a command: Thank thou the king!. But there do not seem to be any instances of thank thou in his writings.