[Sca-cooks] eths and thorns, oh my

[Mark.S Harris]

Margaret, renegade scribe said:
> It's called an "eth", with a hard "th" as in "the" rather than a soft
> "th" as in "eigth", which would be a thorn. A thorn, depending on the
> script, either looks like somebody drew a b on top of a p, or sometimes
> (and mostly later) a 'y'. Thus, "ye" in "ye olde whatever" is actually
> *the*, with a soft "th".

Huh? I'm confused.

You first said 'with a hard "th" as in "the"', then later you
said 'Thus, "ye" in "ye olde whatever" is actually *the*, with
 soft "th".'

I assume 'the' is pronounced the same since it is given as the
example. Yet, here first you say it is hard and then you say
it is soft.

I think we have:
eth     hard "th"    example: "the"
thorn   soft "th"    example: "eight"

Hmm. Maybe the problem is that I understood "ye olde whatever"
translated to "the old whatever". Does it actually translate
closer to "they old whatever"?

> More than you ever wanted to know, probably. ;-)

Maybe not, if I could keep all this straight. T'would be
much easier just to stick to the 26 letter without all the
squiggly lines and such over them. :-)

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net