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this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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It's not wrong. Thorn and eth were used interchangeably by English scribes for centuries for voiced and voiceless dental fricatives.
Sure, back yen spelinge was more viebbes baesed yan nott, but if you're gonna bring them back, do it right.
So you mean to tell me your idea of how to use thorn and eth takes precedent over centuries of actual scribes who actually used them? This is like the missionaries who write grammars of languages of previously uncontacted peoples and them tell them they're speaking their own language wrong when it doesn't match up with their rules. Linguistic rules (ones which people consciously formulate as opposed to the actual rules that speakers unconsciously follow), just like the laws of physics, are descriptive not prescriptive. If the data and the rules seem to be contradictory, it's the rules that are wrong. There's nothing wrong with using thorn and eth interchangeably, in the same way that there's nothing wrong with using eth and thorn strictly for voiced and voiceless dental fricatives.
Frankli, þes, þes I do, becas yeþ didnt speak modern Engliș, wiç we do, & to wiç ye ruls aplþ to. Ye misionarþ is verþ wrong to lektur ye nativs on yeir langweig, but is eqali right to lektur yem on Engliș.
There is a right and a wrong way to break the rules. If you're gonna go out of your way to use obsolete ortography, don't half-ass it.
But modern English doesn't use thorn or eth, so there are no rules about using them. There is absolutely no reason to enforce an arbitrary standard on someone using thorn in a historically precedented way. They're not "breaking the rules" in the first place.