This is an interesting thread. I've been looking at the
English Dialect Dictionaries of Joseph Wright on and off the past few months and of course he was an immense influence on Tolkien. These collections of dialect usage are a
wonderful resource if you can find a decent copy of them online (there are six volumes), or have the money to buy a rare paper copy.
Of course, one of the topics he deals with is the thorny issue of theeing and thouing. It's still a bit of a hot topic to this day in the North where we haven't all yet descended to more common language usage! Even the nickname of Sheffielders refers to this as they are called "deedars" which possibly refers to their over use of the words "thee" and "thar" ("thou" in the Sheffield accent) which is viewed, even in towns as close as Barnsley and Sheffield as deeply uncouth. It could also be a more aggressive insult which stems back to the past - "deedar" being "thee, thar" and hence a verbal insult intended to mark the inhabitants out as socially inferior. Or maybe just mocking the inability to sound "th". Who knows? The important thing here is the nickname, which is widespread (incidentally, it cuts both ways, Barnsley folk are nicknamed "Dingles"
).
One saying I heard when I was a child would be "Don't thee thee me!" which meant you needed to moderate your tone and treat your elders with more respect! And it's still something you hear today in various ways and combinations. Also the source of a joke you hear
all the time up north which runs: "Where's the bin?" "Ahs bin nowhere. Why? Where's thar bin?"
Far from being cutely 'familiar', it's seen as a bit insulting to "thee" someone and has been for some time. It might be used between a couple, between good friends or by a parent to a child (my grandparents would "thee" me all the time), but for say Denethor to use to Gandalf would be seen as highly rude. And for Eowyn to use it to Aragorn it would make him very uncomfortable.
Here's an entry from Vol 6:
Quote:
THEE, v, Wor. To treat or address haughtily; to speak in a patronising manner.
A superior speaking to his inferior, a master to his servant, &c, would be said to 'thee' him, if he spoke sharply, angrily, or haughtily.
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And note that this instance was gathered in Worcestershire. Not the North! Tolkien will have known full well that it was a dodgy way to address someone, fraught with potential danger
The reason why people now associate thee and thou with high falutin' language use is that it's preserved in the Bible, particularly the King James edition, and religious writings usually addressed God or divinity in familiar terms rather than formal.
It's possible that the loss of thee and thou came about due to the influence of French. When they invaded and imposed their system and language on the English, they also brought this formal/informal langauge system, whereas before, there was no 'you' and 'thou' wasn't considered insulting. So there's also a class element at play here, with a word usage gradually becoming considered insulting over time (as also happened with what are now our swear words, once everyday language) because the ruling class didn't use it, except presumably to insult the servants.
I'll stop now before I get onto how modern English dialect usage has devised replacements for loss of the plural second person and what happens when various accents swallow chunks of their "thous"...