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Several dictionaries I have consulted, as well as another question here on English.SE, state that the origin of the word goodbye is “God be with ye”.

Shouldn’t it be “God be with you” or perhaps “God be with thee”, or did the preposition with really take the nominative?

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    As this NGram shows, historically, "God be with ye" is vanishingly rare by comparison with ...you. OED says goodbye is essentially a contraction involving you (with ye as a bracketted alternative). But in speech it would usually be unstressed, so exactly how it was written would be largely irrelevant anyway.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 13:27
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    @FumbleFingers I think you are missing the point that ye also functioned as an oblique form in Middle and Modern English. Furthermore, you cannot trust N-Grams before 1800 in any event.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 17:44
  • @tchrist: No need to go that far back - OED's own citations include Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop 1841 ‘Go thy ways with him, sir,’ cried the sexton, ‘and Heaven be with ye both!’. Personally, I have no real interest in whether the usage was ever "grammatical" or not - I was simply making the point that relatively speaking it was never exactly "common".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 18:15
  • Correct today in a "folk" song.
    – alan2here
    Commented Jun 18 at 8:55

3 Answers 3

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It is an error to believe that ye was only used in the nominative or vocative; it wasn’t. The word ye was sometimes used as the object. The OED says:

3. Used as objective (accusative or dative) instead of you (in plural or singular sense).

And provides many citations, of which these are but a few of them:

  • 1594 Marlowe & Nashe Dido iv. iv, ― For this will Dido tye ye full of knots,··Ye shall no more offend the Carthage Queene.
  • 1613 Shaks. Hen. VIII, v. iii. 181 ― As I haue made ye one Lords, one remaine: So I grow stronger, you more Honour gaine.
  • 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 840, ― I··shall··bring ye to the place.
  • 1820 Byron Mar. Fal. v. i. 198 ― Was not the place of Doge sufficient for ye?
  • 1840 Dickens Old C. Shop lxxii, ― ‘Go thy ways with him, sir,’ cried the sexton, ‘and Heaven be with ye both!’
  • 1847 Halliwell Dict. (1889) I. p. xiv/1 ― I’d soon yarn sum munney, I warrant ye.

Notice how Marlowe even has it going both ways.

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    That crazy Kit!
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 23:30
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Objective you/ye was probably based on stress contrast like in Modern Dutch jij/je, Flemish gij/ge, or French toi/te. Sprachbund thing I guess.

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  • Nope, ēow (acc) and gē (nom) were both stressed forms in Old English, with the latter having unstressed ge. Possibly they grew closer to match þū, þē (which again were both strong forms, with unstressed þu, þe).
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jun 17 at 15:24
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It is grammatically incorrect, but often used in spoken language and written form in poems and novels. As you say ‘ya’ instead of ‘you’, they should’ve said or written the word, ‘ye’. As a student who studies English linguistics, I can give you this as an answer.

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    – Community Bot
    Commented Jun 17 at 15:18
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    Ye as object and after prepositions is attested from around 1400 to the present day, found in Chaucer, Marlowe, More, Scott, Dickens...; it still survives in dialect. Calling it incorrect is a gross over-simplification.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jun 17 at 15:33
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    'It is an error to believe that ye was only used in the nominative or vocative; it wasn’t. The word ye was sometimes used as the object. The OED says: << 3. Used as objective (accusative or dative) instead of you (in plural or singular sense) >>.' tchrist has quoted a venerable authority on usage.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jun 17 at 15:59

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