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Ye olde Thorn "þ" or how a letter vanished in the English alphabet.
- Thread starter Kyougar
- Start date
That's a long s.
It was used in German speaking countries until before the second world war.
Fun fact: the math symbol for sum is a long s.
Blasphemous!
Thou need at least some afternoon tea biscuits.
OP
OP
It is quite mind-boggling how such a fundamental history of the English language/alphabet is so forgotten. And that not even people who study English are getting taught about it.
ohh i remember that little fucker of a letter. I work in the Audibook industry, both in the studio recording the books with narrators as well as the post-production editing wizardry.
A few years ago we had to record a book called Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book , a collection of recipes from 1604, with olde tyme archaic spelling at all. Þ was in there constantly, along with the letter f being used as an "S" sound, and plenty of other bullshit. That poor woman who recorded the book was brought to tears during the recording it was so brutal. She had only recorded a few fictional chapter books before this, and then BAM. One of the most difficult-to-read books landed on her lap. I was stuck with doing all of the recording along with the correcting of the book. Old recipes aren't written like we know them now. They're written in paragraph form, exactly as my post is formatted. Imagine following along with a recipe in the 17th century, reading a freaking tome just to figure out how to make some damn holiday desert through your hollowed out pig carcass-turned oven. (that was the only fun fact I remember from the book. They'd hollow out animal carcasses, stuff 'em with food, and then hang the carcass over the kitchen fireplace to cook.)
Old english is fun!
A few years ago we had to record a book called Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book , a collection of recipes from 1604, with olde tyme archaic spelling at all. Þ was in there constantly, along with the letter f being used as an "S" sound, and plenty of other bullshit. That poor woman who recorded the book was brought to tears during the recording it was so brutal. She had only recorded a few fictional chapter books before this, and then BAM. One of the most difficult-to-read books landed on her lap. I was stuck with doing all of the recording along with the correcting of the book. Old recipes aren't written like we know them now. They're written in paragraph form, exactly as my post is formatted. Imagine following along with a recipe in the 17th century, reading a freaking tome just to figure out how to make some damn holiday desert through your hollowed out pig carcass-turned oven. (that was the only fun fact I remember from the book. They'd hollow out animal carcasses, stuff 'em with food, and then hang the carcass over the kitchen fireplace to cook.)
Old english is fun!
Yeah I was in the 'ye' pronunciation camp till today. Now I know better!
Shouldn't that be UUitch? After all, the W is a "double U".
*taps temple*