4 ms·
"Else" is not archaic. Every kid growing up in the sixties knew that the way to start a fight was to say "Or else!" It was used a lot in cowboy movies before
by baking 6y ago
"Else" is not archaic. Every kid growing up in the sixties knew that the way to start a fight was to say "Or else!" It was used a lot in cowboy movies before a gunfight.
- gbrown 6y agoI think for these purposes, “else” is different from the “or else” construction. As in: “Read thee the article, else thou shall suffer great ridicule in the comments.”
- ithkuil 6y ago"thee" is the dative (and later accusative) inflected form of "thou", the second person singular pronoun. In your sentence above "Read" is the imperative form of the verb. The subject is elided since it's implicitly second person (singular or plural) (as imperative is used to give orders to people you're talking to) and if it wasn't elided it would have been in nominative case. Middle english had an ending -(e)th to form a plural second person imperative. "Learn the grammar of past and present languages, else you'll attract pedants from the intertubes"
- gbrown 6y agoThis is fantastic
- chrismorgan 6y ago(At least a couple of wrong words there: “thee” should be “thou”, and “shall” should be “shalt”. Also I reckon “thou shalt” reads much better as “shalt thou” in this style, though either is acceptable. Final proposed form: “Read thou the article, else shalt thou suffer great ridicule in the comments.” The overall style of the sentence is still rather off for the era, but it’ll do.)
- gbrown 6y ago“The best way to get an answer in the internet is not to ask a question, but to post something incorrect.” - Thomas Jefferson
- baking 6y agoIf you are calling me archaic, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside, you young whippersnapper.