If the person trying to bring back thorn really wanted to be pretentious, they would start using y instead. Y used to make the “th” sound, (the same way they’re trying to use thorn), which is where “ye olde” stuff comes from. It was pronounced “the old” just like modern English, but was spelled with a y instead of th.
My understanding is that it was just a printing convention because þ was unavailable in movable type at the time, with y being the closest approximation. Y was never pronounced like th except when it was understood to be substituting for thorn.
With the arrival of movable type printing, the substitution of ⟨y⟩ for ⟨Þ⟩ became ubiquitous, leading to the common ye as in “Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe”. One major reason for this was that ⟨y⟩ existed in the blackletter types that William Caxton and his contemporaries imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while ⟨Þ⟩ did not, resulting in yͤ as well as ye.
Youð meanð likeð thisð?
If the person trying to bring back thorn really wanted to be pretentious, they would start using y instead. Y used to make the “th” sound, (the same way they’re trying to use thorn), which is where “ye olde” stuff comes from. It was pronounced “the old” just like modern English, but was spelled with a y instead of th.
[citation needed]
My understanding is that it was just a printing convention because þ was unavailable in movable type at the time, with y being the closest approximation. Y was never pronounced like th except when it was understood to be substituting for thorn.
Wikipedia:
Similar to the e on the end of your username?
No.
Ok? …but now I’m even more curious how that’s true…