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From: James Eason <jeason@midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: English importation of words (was Re: Is '#' a "pound sign" or what?)
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Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 19:16:55 GMT
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> It's not clear, though, why they would choose "y" to represent "thorn"
> when copying old manuscripts.

Write an edh. Write it several times, fast. It comes out looking 
like a cursive "y". Write a thorn. Write it several times, fast. it 
comes out looking like a backwards "y". So the two letters fall 
together as a kind of weird "y". Then you put a dot over it to 
distinguish it from a real "y". Then the dot disappears and 
everyone's confused. So you substitute "th". (Actually, curly d 
disappeared relatively early, and you only see thorn later on, but 
this is more or less the sequence.)

Dot your y's and cross your d's, as we used to say in olden 
times....
