Should be "Hear Ye -- Let Thy Site Visitors Speak".

If I recall my history of English grammar correctly, "thine" would be used in the same place where one would use "mine" or "yours". Thus, "Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory," but "Thy kingdom, thy power, thy glory."

But there's really no excuse for "Here ye". It's true that spelling wasn't nearly standardized in "ye olde days", so it's possible that there are historical documents in which the phrase is spelled "here ye", but it's far more likely that the author of the headline didn't know what he or she was doing. Sheesh -- hire an English major, already!

Oh, well, I've probably made a grammatical mistake in this post, and will be justly flamed for it...

Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz on January 8, 2003 12:36 AM

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Dennis, my understanding of "thine" is similar. What bothered me about the headline is that there's just no reason to use that type of speech. I know that it is trendy to be clever when coming up with headlines, but I think it is a bad idea when the author isn't sure!

As far as whether to point it out, it's a tough call. I have a friend who confused an old anti-communist saying with a more modern version about redheads and I had to point it out before it ended up as a t-shirt slogan, which surely would have been an embarrassment. I'm still not sure if I pissed off my friend or not, but I felt I had to say something.

I try to research things I'm not familiar with before using them in my writing, but sometimes people think they know something and don't need to research it, so I'm sure some things slip through the cracks.

Posted by: Lydia on January 8, 2003 02:14 PM

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Unrelated to the IBM article, but a follow up to Lydia:

A few years ago, students from the English honor society at my school were about to print up sweatshirts that read: "I'm an English major. Doth thee want fries with that?"

I pointed out that, while many people who weren't English majors wouldn't get the joke, the ones who did would likely say, "Yup, a bunch of students who put THAT on their T-shirt obviously didn't get much out of their English major, and thus would be well suited to working in a fast food joint.

I suggested "Wilst thou have fries with that?" but the students compromised and went with "Dost thou want fries with that?"

Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz on January 8, 2003 06:04 PM

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Moron!

To add to what Dennis said, communication is only successful when the other person understands what you say. All too often on the Web, you find "cute" headlines using names of songs and lines from American advertising.

Why not stick to plain English? Ironically, Peter Seebach writes a column advocating the user experience. I've written him a mail about this.

Posted by: MadMan on January 8, 2003 11:32 PM

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Peter Seebach's response:

OW! Right on both counts. However, I do have the convenient dodge that the headline was picked by my editor, and I didn't see it. I emailed her already.

Posted by: MadMan on January 9, 2003 12:01 AM

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Thanks for sharing that one, Dennis! Very good story. What gets me is that it just sounds wrong. I don't know how anyone could say it and think it was OK. But, that's just me.

MadMan, I agree - plain English is best when writing for a wide audience. Unfortunately, I'm away from my usual bookmarks, but I have an excellent article saved that talks about how to write to an audience of readers who speak English as a second language - many of those tips apply to writing for an International audience, too.

His editor needs a spanking - that is just unforgivable!

Posted by: Lydia on January 9, 2003 06:35 PM

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Here's the article: Writing for a Global Audience

Posted by: Lydia on January 10, 2003 05:08 PM

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