Laura María
What Does"Taketh me" mean? I was watching an american series and I just saw this sentence "Driver, Taketh me to Williamsburg" What is that "th" doing at the end of the verb? Is that usual or is it just a slang? I'l appreciate your help.
Oct 25, 2017 6:27 PM
Answers · 11
1
Is said before it is archaic. It is also used incorrectly as the verb form ending th is third person singular and the driver is being addressed in the 2nd person singula and it is an imrerative. The correct archaic usage would be 'takest thou me'
October 25, 2017
1
As part of our culture and education, native English speakers are exposed to English written centuries ago, including some grammatical forms that have fallen out of use. We encounter them in Shakespeare, in the King James version of the Bible, and in books (and movies!) about King Arthur and Robin Hood. The old second person familiar pronoun was "thou," the second person verb ending was "-est," the third person ending was "-eth"--or something like that. We don't study them or use them correctly. Some examples of old-fashioned English include: "And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits." Mostly, we hear this kind of language in movies set in old times and sometimes we use it facetiously. "Fair damsel, wouldst thou hie thee with me to yon Dunkin' Donuts to quaff a flagon of coffee?" In the same category, the sound of "th" was once given a separate letter of its own, the thorn (þ); in the commonest word that begins with th, "the," the word was written quickly and the thorn became distorted to look like a "y," and eventually printers used an actual "y." The result is that "The" was typeset as "Ye"--hence places that are trying to look old-fashioned may call themselves "Ye Olde Ice-Cream Shoppe."
October 25, 2017
1
Putting “th” or “eth” at the end of a verb is a very old style of English (the sort of thing you would hear in the plays of William Shakespeare, for example). It is not used in modern speech, so in the series you were watching it was probably supposed to be a kind of joke, a funny way to make the usual sentence, “Driver, take me to Williamsburg” sound formal and old-fashioned.
October 25, 2017
1
"Taketh" as an example of archaic (old-fashioned) verb conjugation. Similar to "thou art" instead of "you are" or "he hath" instead of "he has", this is the way people spoke english hundreds of years ago. Taketh is not a recognized part of the modern english language, but may sometimes be used to evoke an "old-timey" feel. It is definitely not usual and you should probably never use it.
October 25, 2017
Yeah, it is a bit shocking. Just when you're starting to believe you're getting good at English, you find things like these, it's pretty interesting though!
October 25, 2017
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