Prithee English texts, and the difference between the two terms has been debated by scholars. Scholars such as Roger Brown and Albert Gilman have suggested that "prithee" was an ingroup indicator. Other scholars suggest that it is simply the more deferential form. 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. Although the closest Modern English equivalent of "prithee" is "please", the two terms presume different attitudes within the addressee. While "please" accompanies a request addressing itself to the positive desire of
Prithee 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. In the "Complete Works of Shakespeare", "prithee" occurs 228 times while "pray thee" occurs only 92 times. Prithee Prithee is an archaic English interjection formed from a corruption of the phrase "pray thee" ([I] ask you [to]), which was initially an exclamation of contempt used to indicate a subject's triviality. The earliest recorded appearance of the word "prithee" according to the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1577 and the last appearance was in