From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Mon Feb 07 2011 - 14:28:48 CST
On 02/07/2011 03:00 PM, Ed wrote:
> Just curious: Is there anywhere a good explanation of why þorn fell
> out of favor and was replaced by "th" in the spelling of English?
>
> I guess Michael Everson could provide us a good explanation to add to
> his þorn blog ...
What they told me in History of the English Language class was that it
was printing that did away with þorn, since it was one more damn piece
of metal to keep track of, and it was in the printers' interests to keep
the alphabet small. "Th" had been used before, this tipped the scales
in its favor.
Not sure precisely how that squares with þ coming to look like y and
remaining in the words "ye" and "yt" (superscript t, meaning "that").
Me, I won't spell Þursday without Þorn.
~mark
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