I've just found in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde "The anachronistic use of "ye olde" dates at least t

I've just found in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde "The anachronistic use of "ye olde" dates at least to the late 18th century, as seen in the image at below right (image 1908). The use of the term "ye" to mean "the" is based in Early Modern English, in which the could be written as þe, employing the Old English letter thorn, þ. During the Tudor period, the scribal abbreviation for þe was EME ye.svg ("þͤ" or "þᵉ" with modern symbols); here, the letter ⟨þ⟩ is combined with the letter ⟨e⟩" Wikipedia links to MW: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ye[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ye[2] "Origin and Etymology of ye alteration of Middle English þe the, from Old English þē; from the use of the letter y by printers and scribes of late Middle English to represent þ (th) of earlier manuscripts First Known Use: 1551" And finally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Old_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Old_English "The letter thorn was used for writing Old English very early on, as was ð; unlike ð, however, thorn remained in common use through most of the Middle English period. Both letters were used for the phoneme /θ/, sometimes by the same scribe."