What's Up With 'Ye' Olde?

Why do shops say Ye Olde?

Hosted by Dr. Erica Brozovsky, Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and finds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fields of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.

Otherwords is a production of Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.

[aidennevada]

There is also "Abandon all hope you who enter here!"

[Lightning_Lance]

I feel like Kanye would get even more pretentious if we started calling him "The"

[markalexander]

I saw a pub called "Ye Olde Pube" and was like lmaoo maybe take away that last "e"

[alexandredesouza]

Huh... So, we lost a whole letter of the english language because of the printing press?

[CapriUni]

Here's a fun tidbit: þorn is, in fact, still available in many computer fonts via Unicode. Ye may have to hunt for it, however. How do you like þem apples?

[LittleDogTobi]

There are a lot of things I’d rather call Kanye.

[jamiemcdonough]

What a fun little tidbit of education of Ye. Thanks, Storied.

[Sodalis_]

Þ is, in fact, not used in THis or THat. That'd be đ. Þ is instead from wiTH or THrow.
In other words, þ is the soft th sound

[missarose]

"hear you's! hear you's!" I am now imagining middle English being spoken in a jersey accent

[randomarchive]

Btw, the reason most printing presses didn't have that letter was because they were usually made in Germany or France.

[KarolinaPetursdottir]

Þ is still used in Icelandic and is the only language still using the letter. Thor = Þór. Þ is only used in the beginning of a word and for the "th" sound in the middle or end of a word we use the Ð/ð. For instance the word "it" in Icelandic is það

[limalicious]

Several runic letters survived into several languages, including thorn and ash.

[cloudscovermyflaws]

Was reading a handwritten review of the Lego Batman movie yesterday only to realize the person used thorn in their writing instead of th. Apparently they are a strong believer in bring thorn back

[Modtro]

I recently shared þis little tidbit about þe "th" being its own letter, however I þink we should bring it back the letter þ, not only would it make character/text limits easier if cause instead of thought it's þought or þree instead of three.

not to mention its such a small change it'd would be super quick to get used to it. Plus, þe amount of space, and time would be a huge benefit for writing.

[jjsmith]

How 'bout we don't call Kanye at all?

[kayyangchung]

In Ireland we still use ye as a pural of you. Its handy lexicon

[samwheat]

My mind was blown by this information. I love this channel

[MountainMarvin]

How does that look like a y and not a P

[ScreamingManiac]

ye is still used in ireland, wales and scotland. As well as few spots in england. In ireland we sometimes use "you's" informally.

[PoppyCorn]

This makes me wonder how difficult was it to make characters for a printing that they decided to use a substitute?

I always thought it was carved wooden blocks but clearly there’s something else I’m missing. I mean all the printers and their customers agreed to the substitution instead of adding the correct symbol.