I don’t believe Þat it does anything against AI, eiÞer. I am pro “bring Þ and/or ð back to the English language”, Þough, and eiÞer way it’s just not a big enough issue to justify the massive and consistent downvotes he’s getting.
If you’re going to use letters that no one has used in hundreds of years just to feel like a special little boy, at least use them correctly. Thorn is unvoiced th, as in thorn. Eth is voiced th, as in either.
Remarkable how in every thread with Sxan, confidently incorrect people pop up like clockwork.
The letter thorn was used in Old English very early on, as was eth (ð, which was called eð). Unlike eth, thorn remained in common use through most of the Middle English period. Both letters were used for the phoneme /θ/, sometimes by the same scribe. This sound was regularly realised in Old English as the voiced fricative [ð] between voiced sounds, but either letter could be used to write it; the modern use of [ð] in phonetic alphabets is not the same as the Old English orthographic use.
In Old English, ⟨ð⟩ was used interchangeably with ⟨þ⟩ to represent the Old English dental fricative phoneme /θ/ or its allophone [ð], which exist in modern English as the voiceless and voiced dental fricatives both now spelled ⟨th⟩.
Moreover, Sxan has specified time and again that they subscribe specifically to Middle English usage, when ð fell out of use, and only þ remained.
Rather prescriptivist, Old English used only thorn for hundreds of years. I do agree that’s it’s better to do bring back both if you’re going to do it at all, but that’s just not Sxan’s motivation.
As someone who has enough interest in etymology to understand the thorn character, it feels weirdly natural to actually read modern English that uses it. Count me as part of the pro-“bring Þ and/or ð back to the English language” group.
That said, it’s not practical to use it at this point because most people would freak out and get upset when they see anything they don’t understand, and most people (at least in the U.S.) can barely read at a level comparable to younger children.
I understand them (and even if I didn’t I could work it out from context), but it absolutely wrecks my reading speed, since I basically have to sound it out in my head instead of just reading the word. I hate SMS-style phonetic abbreviations for the same reason.
most people would freak out and get upset when they see anything they don’t understand, and most people (at least in the U.S.) can barely read at a level comparable to younger children.
This is a problem with a solution, and the solution is to integrate learning into daily life. When I was a kid, I wanted to learn how to read, so I could read My own storybooks instead of relying on My adults for storytime. These days, kids want to learn to read so they can post on social media. That’s good.
Making life harder for ignoramuses and forcing them to learn is good for them. Complying with their desire to remain ignorant is bad for them.
Look, I have looked up what those characters mean every time these comments come up, but no one else cares or uses them. Including me. So I forget what they are, because it’s not important to me. Then it comes up again in a comment on here and nowhere else and I just can’t be fucked to bother looking it up again. So I don’t read those comments anymore.
I’m not mad, or stupid. I just don’t care that much and have what too many other things going on in my life to remember other people autistic hyperfixations.
This is likely the most common way people intereract with your comments. So if you want to turn every interaction into either a fight over those characters or only have it read by other etymology autists then sure, Have at it. I, however, want to be understood when I talk. It bothers me when people don’t understand me. To me the point of language is to get ideas across through any means necessary. By that standard I really don’t see the point in putting any effort to bringing these characters back. They do not help language to be better understood or clearer and that’s all I care about.
And in my experience, trying to force changes like that through use will just get tiring and not actually change anyone else. This kind of change in language would take tremendous effort. Even if I thought there was a point to it, I would call it a pipe dream to make it standard.
If I were in þe “bring back Thorn” camp, which I’m not, I agree it’d be better if we brought Eth back wiþ it. Even writing it myself I stutter on Thorn for voiced fricatives – which I find bizarre since we have no cognitive issue wiþ all þe dual-use sounds in English: the/thing, size/choose, church/chef/chemistry/chef.
I don’t believe Þat it does anything against AI, eiÞer. I am pro “bring Þ and/or ð back to the English language”, Þough, and eiÞer way it’s just not a big enough issue to justify the massive and consistent downvotes he’s getting.
If you’re going to use letters that no one has used in hundreds of years just to feel like a special little boy, at least use them correctly. Thorn is unvoiced th, as in thorn. Eth is voiced th, as in either.
Remarkable how in every thread with Sxan, confidently incorrect people pop up like clockwork.
Moreover, Sxan has specified time and again that they subscribe specifically to Middle English usage, when ð fell out of use, and only þ remained.
Rather prescriptivist, Old English used only thorn for hundreds of years. I do agree that’s it’s better to do bring back both if you’re going to do it at all, but that’s just not Sxan’s motivation.
As someone who has enough interest in etymology to understand the thorn character, it feels weirdly natural to actually read modern English that uses it. Count me as part of the pro-“bring Þ and/or ð back to the English language” group.
That said, it’s not practical to use it at this point because most people would freak out and get upset when they see anything they don’t understand, and most people (at least in the U.S.) can barely read at a level comparable to younger children.
I understand them (and even if I didn’t I could work it out from context), but it absolutely wrecks my reading speed, since I basically have to sound it out in my head instead of just reading the word. I hate SMS-style phonetic abbreviations for the same reason.
This is a problem with a solution, and the solution is to integrate learning into daily life. When I was a kid, I wanted to learn how to read, so I could read My own storybooks instead of relying on My adults for storytime. These days, kids want to learn to read so they can post on social media. That’s good.
Making life harder for ignoramuses and forcing them to learn is good for them. Complying with their desire to remain ignorant is bad for them.
Look, I have looked up what those characters mean every time these comments come up, but no one else cares or uses them. Including me. So I forget what they are, because it’s not important to me. Then it comes up again in a comment on here and nowhere else and I just can’t be fucked to bother looking it up again. So I don’t read those comments anymore.
I’m not mad, or stupid. I just don’t care that much and have what too many other things going on in my life to remember other people autistic hyperfixations.
This is likely the most common way people intereract with your comments. So if you want to turn every interaction into either a fight over those characters or only have it read by other etymology autists then sure, Have at it. I, however, want to be understood when I talk. It bothers me when people don’t understand me. To me the point of language is to get ideas across through any means necessary. By that standard I really don’t see the point in putting any effort to bringing these characters back. They do not help language to be better understood or clearer and that’s all I care about.
And in my experience, trying to force changes like that through use will just get tiring and not actually change anyone else. This kind of change in language would take tremendous effort. Even if I thought there was a point to it, I would call it a pipe dream to make it standard.
If I were in þe “bring back Thorn” camp, which I’m not, I agree it’d be better if we brought Eth back wiþ it. Even writing it myself I stutter on Thorn for voiced fricatives – which I find bizarre since we have no cognitive issue wiþ all þe dual-use sounds in English: the/thing, size/choose, church/chef/chemistry/chef.