Editing The (section)

=== ''Ye'' form ===
{{more|Thorn (letter)}}
[[File:The Book of Margery Kempe, Chapter 18 (clip).png|thumb|"... by the grace that god put ..." (Extract from the ''[[The Book of Margery Kempe]]'')]] 
In Middle English, the [[Th (digraph) |digraph {{angbr|th}}]] was written using the letter [[thorn (letter)|thorn]], {{char|þ}}. During the latter Middle English and [[Early Modern English]] periods, thorn (in its common script or [[cursive]] form), came to resemble a ''y'' shape. With the arrival of [[movable type]] printing, the substitution of {{angbr|y}} for {{angbr|Þ}} became ubiquitous, leading to the common ''ye'', as in '[[Ye Olde]] Curiositie Shoppe'. One major reason for this was that {{angbr|y}} existed in the printer's [[Movable type|types]] that [[William Caxton]] and his contemporaries imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while {{angbr|Þ}} did not.<ref name=Hill>{{cite book |title=The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System |isbn=9780367581565 |chapter=Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text |first=Will |last=Hill |date=30 June 2020 |chapter-url=https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |page=6 |publisher=Taylor & Francis Limited (Sales) |quote=The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood ‘ye’ occurs through a habit of printer's usage that originates in Caxton's time, when printers would substitute the <y> (often accompanied by a superscript <e>) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169) |access-date=1 December 2022 |archive-date=10 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710022857/https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>  Historically, the article was never pronounced with a ''y'' sound even when it was so written.

The word ''þe'' (''the'') was frequently written as {{char|þͤ}}, a {{angbr|þ}} with a small {{angbr|e}} above it. (Similarly, ''þat'' (modern ''that'') was abbreviated using a {{angbr|þ}} with a small {{angbr|t}} above it, as can be seen in the sample illustrated here.) As a result of the {{angbr|y}} for {{angbr|þ}} substitution practice, the use of a {{angbr|y}} with an {{angbr|e}} above it ({{char|yͤ}},[[File:EME ye.svg|10px]]) style became common. It can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the [[King James Version of the Bible]] (in places such as Romans 15:29) or in the [[Mayflower Compact]].