From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 4 21:36:31 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC3AF16A403 for ; Sat, 4 Nov 2006 21:36:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (dsl231-043-140.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net [216.231.43.140]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E692E43D5A for ; Sat, 4 Nov 2006 21:36:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1) with ESMTP id kA4LaRQl011122; Sat, 4 Nov 2006 13:36:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id kA4LaQrJ011121; Sat, 4 Nov 2006 13:36:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kline) Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2006 13:36:21 -0800 From: Gary Kline To: Bill Moran Message-ID: <20061104213621.GA11067@thought.org> References: <20061104045607.GA5653@thought.org> <20061104205321.d309c51c.wmoran@collaborativefusion.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20061104205321.d309c51c.wmoran@collaborativefusion.com> X-Organization: Thought Unlimited. Public service Unix since 1986. X-Of_Interest: Observing twenty years of service to the Unix community User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: digression: There is no "ye" (was Re: what happened to groff?!!) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 21:36:32 -0000 On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 08:53:21PM +0000, Bill Moran wrote: > On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 20:56:07 -0800 > Gary Kline wrote: > > > Guys, > > > > This roff script is in a directory with ye-olden-English font, > > There is no word "ye", and there never was. > > Word origins is a hobby of mine, and I found it pretty difficult to figure > out where "ye" came from, because it never existed. > > What _did_ exist, was a letter in old English called a "thorne". The thorne > looked a lot like a capital "Y" (with a horizontal line through it) and had > the sound of "th". When the thorne fell into disuse, later readers would > think sentences said "we went to Ye bar to drink wiY friends". > > Since "the" is liable to be the most common word in the English language, this > fell into a more general belief that in olden times, the word "ye" was used > instead of "the". > > Anyway, it's a bit of non-BSD trivia. Sorry for the noise to those who aren't > interested, and sorry that I don't know enough about groff to help fix your > problem. > Well, maybe the gurus will be back on Monday. I'm no scholar of the English language, but yeah, you're right on the money re the thorn character. [ Ever watch Bergan Evans' broadcasts circa late-1950's? ] gary > -Bill > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org www.thought.org Public service Unix