[PW] Ye equals The?

[jtg]

As Karen says, and also because (I stand to be corrected!) the answer given
was in itself incorrect: "The Old Curiosity Shop"* is Dickens' ~descriptive~
term and not the name of the shop: were it so signed above the door in
script 'twould be one thing, but 'taint so the only correct answer should be
the name of the book itself. Dickens had a perfect ear for dialect and to
commit such a fow-pars in the ninetinct century as....

* An old shop selling such things

John Germain

Jersey
British Channel Islands

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of
Karen Lofstrom
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 8:00 PM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] Ye equals The?

On 10/2/07, Jeanne Schramm <jeanne.schramm at gmail.com> wrote:

> Recently on an episode of Jeopardy! a contestant lost in the final round
for
> giving the answer "Ye Old Curiosity Shop" (instead of "The Old Curiosity
> Shop").  Before I send a letter of protest (!!) to Alex Trebek, does
anyone
> know of a reason why "Ye" should not be considered an alternate spelling
of
> "The"?

Because the Y is just an inexact rendering of the letter "thorn",
representing "th", which looks a bit like a Y. "Ye" is just scribal
shorthand for "the".

-- 
Karen Lofstrom
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