Thorn letter: Encyclopedia II - Thorn letter - Usage in English

Thorn letter - Usage in English

The letter was used in writing Middle English before the invention of the printing press. William Caxton, the first printer in England, brought with him type made in Continental Europe, which lacked thorn, yogh, and eth. He substituted the letter Y in place of thorn. This was not an arbitrary choice on his part: in some manuscripts of the earlier 1400s, such as The Boke of Margery Kempe, the letters Y and thorn were identical. In fact Y in place of thorn is still seen on gravestones and in the stock prefix "Ye olde...". The latter is often used for quaint store signs, such as "Ye Olde Candy Shoppe" and in the name of theme pubs to indicate things of medieval extraction or things which are English, often to convey a Deep England feel. The construction Ye Olde English Pubbe is the usual example, a standard bar name akin to The Red Lion.

The definite article spelled with Y for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced "yee" or mistaken for the archaic nominative case of you, written ye. It is used infrequently in some modern English word games to replace the "th" with a single letter.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Usage in English", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki