ornoth | A Thorny Problem

One of the most useful sites I’ve found for writers is Common Errors in English, which is maintained by WSU English prof Paul Brians. He provides a handy reference that is amusing and easily navigable. It rocks my world.

I recently purchased and read the book which he has made out of the site. It contains just the same information as you can find online, but I thought purchasing it a worthy way to support the site.

Last night, as I plowed through the ‘Y’ entries before finishing the book, I came across something I didn’t know and found highly amusing. It was in this entry for “Ye/The”.

What it says is this: “ye” as a synonym for “the” is a malapropism. “The” was originally spelled not with the digraph “th”, but with the old Anglo-Saxon thorn character (Þ): þe.

Big deal? Well, although it’s always represented the sound ‘th’, the symbol that represents the thorn has evolved over time. For a while it looked quite like the letter ‘P’. Then it evolved to look more like the letter ‘Y’. Thus, while “the” has always been pronounced “the”, there was a time when it *looked* like it was spelled “ye”. The thorn spelling was replaced by the “th” digraph in the late Middle Ages, but the thorn continued to be used for a long time in certain places, notably store signs.

Thus, while everyone knew “the” was spelled “the”, there were places that still used the thorn. Since the thorn looked like a ‘Y’, places like “Ye Chandler” spurred a popular misconception that “ye” was some old-school word (pronounced “yee”) that was a synonym for “the”. But there never was any such word as “ye”. Surprise!

Now, this does not extend to “ye” as a plural personal pronoun. That usage is fine, such as in the carol “O come all ye faithful”. No problem there, because there “ye” is a valid form of the old school “thee/thou/thine” pronouns. But “ye” as a synonym for “the” is just a myth that began when the use of the thorn character in English was discontinued.

And yes, both the thorn character and the sharp, pointy bit on a rose were both originally spelled: þorn.

A Thorny Problem

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