Prithee

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Prithee is an

corruption of the phrase pray thee ([I] ask you [to]), which was initially an exclamation of contempt used to indicate a subject's triviality.[1] The earliest recorded appearance of the word prithee listed in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1577, while it is most commonly found in works from the seventeenth century.[2] The contraction is a form of indirect request that has disappeared from the language.[3]

Prithee is the most widely known example of second

discourse particle.[5]

There has been extensive scholarship investigating the difference in usage of prithee as opposed to pray you, both in terms of politeness and grammaticalisation.[6] Because prithee eventually came to be used in the same context with the word you, it is considered to have developed into a monomorpheme.[7] Prithee was almost always used as a parenthesis in order to introduce indirect questions and requests.

Prithee and pray you often coincide in

ingroup indicator. Other scholars suggest that it is simply the more deferential form.[8] The relationship between the two is complicated by the phrase beseech you, which was used in the same time period and was clearly the form used most deferentially.[9]

Although the closest

negatively rather than positively. Wider repercussions are observable in the replacement of such phrases as "excuse me" and "pardon me," which request understanding or forgiveness, with "I am sorry," which instead acknowledges the speaker's remorse.[11]

In the Complete Works of Shakespeare, prithee occurs 228 times while pray thee occurs only 92 times.

References

  1. ^ John Stoddart (1858). Glossology: or, The Historical Relations of Languages. R. Griffin and Company. p. 198. Prithee linguistics.
  2. ISBN 90-272-3056-0
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  3. ISBN 1-55111-778-9
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  4. ISBN 1-58811-523-2
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  5. ISBN 1-58811-280-2
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  6. ISBN 951-9040-16-1
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  7. ^ "Definition and Examples of Monomorphemic Words". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  8. ISBN 0-415-23356-9
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  9. ISBN 90-272-5393-5
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  10. ISBN 978-90-272-5420-7
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  11. ISBN 978-90-272-4811-4
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