My wife bought me Bill Bryson's Made in America for Christmas. I'm a hopeless reader. I read about six pages and then fall asleep, which is a shame because its a really interesting book, all about words and Americanisms and debunking myths and things. Either I have ADD or I work really hard during the day. Or a combination of both.One little nugget that I never knew was the old English 'Ye' meaning 'The' was not pronounced Ye. It was always pronounced The. Ye was just a stylistic printer's thanggg.
Not to be confused with Ye, meaning You, and pronounced Ye. Of course.
Ah! So I suppose trappe in the notice above doesn't rhyme with poppy, and shoppe, as in Ye Olde English Tea Shoppe, doesn't rhyme with poppy either.
ReplyDeleteMichael, I'm only on page 96 and he never mentioned olde, trappe or shoppe when he was going through Elizabethan language.
ReplyDeleteMy own hunch is that, whereas spellings might change, pronunciation would tend to stay the same.
But I could be, and probably am, wrong!