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> In ye olden days to make a diskette bootable Off-topic, but the letter "y" of "ye" is in fact the letter 'thorn' (þ) in Old English, but got turned into "y"

by sedatk 2y ago

> In ye olden days to make a diskette bootable Off-topic, but the letter "y" of "ye" is in fact the letter 'thorn' (þ) in Old English, but got turned into "y" because the printing press, which originated from Germany, didn't have that English letter. That's why English alphabet also uses German "w" (double v's as you can notice from its shape, and pronounced "vee" in German) instead of English "double u" which used to be represented by a different letter called 'wynn' ('ƿ' or "uu").

xenadu02 2y ago
Yup. It was never pronounced "yuhee". Sometimes it was written þe, other times it was written with a small "e" above "þ" like a diacritic. Because cursive "þ" looked similar to cursive "y" when English printers imported movable type from the continent they just used "y" for it. So "Ye" was always pronounced "The" the way we do today. Also the pronoun "ye" was written "ge" but pronounced similar to how we'd pronounce "ye" today. "You" was the formal pronoun. Saying "you" to family or close friends would be insulting - as if you weren't close to them. At some point it became fashionable to sound more upperclass/aristocratic so the formal "you" took over. Thus confusion because "ye" was a real word used back then but for entirely different purposes and spelled "ge", while þe/the was always pronounced with a "th" like today but spelled differently before "th" was standardized. If you said "Ye Olden Days" at best someone of the time might think you were saying "(your) olden days" implying they are very old and you're trying to reference their youth in a very oddly formal way but with the wrong pronoun. Another Fun fact: thy/thine was already archaic at the time the King James Bible was written. They used it deliberately the way the OP used "Ye Olden Days" - to deliberately sound old and thus imply authority/authenticity. In the 1300s/1400s it was used when implying familiarity or contempt - with family it means familiarity/close relationships. Used with a stranger or superior it was like someone saying "Hey pal" to your boss. Again it became fashionable to switch to the second person plural for formality, then being formal all the time became fashionable, and eventually the formal forms became the new informal.

by sedatk 2y ago

xenadu02 2y ago

Yup. It was never pronounced "yuhee". Sometimes it was written þe, other times it was written with a small "e" above "þ" like a diacritic. Because cursive "þ" looked similar to cursive "y" when English printers imported movable type from the continent they just used "y" for it. So "Ye" was always pronounced "The" the way we do today. Also the pronoun "ye" was written "ge" but pronounced similar to how we'd pronounce "ye" today. "You" was the formal pronoun. Saying "you" to family or close friends would be insulting - as if you weren't close to them. At some point it became fashionable to sound more upperclass/aristocratic so the formal "you" took over. Thus confusion because "ye" was a real word used back then but for entirely different purposes and spelled "ge", while þe/the was always pronounced with a "th" like today but spelled differently before "th" was standardized. If you said "Ye Olden Days" at best someone of the time might think you were saying "(your) olden days" implying they are very old and you're trying to reference their youth in a very oddly formal way but with the wrong pronoun. Another Fun fact: thy/thine was already archaic at the time the King James Bible was written. They used it deliberately the way the OP used "Ye Olden Days" - to deliberately sound old and thus imply authority/authenticity. In the 1300s/1400s it was used when implying familiarity or contempt - with family it means familiarity/close relationships. Used with a stranger or superior it was like someone saying "Hey pal" to your boss. Again it became fashionable to switch to the second person plural for formality, then being formal all the time became fashionable, and eventually the formal forms became the new informal.