this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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For English-speakers here in the Fediverse, the "Þ" (thorn) character is pronounced "th." I've been seeing it pop up in some comments recently and throwing people off, since it's not a letter used in the English language.
It's an ancient English and Scandinavian character, no longer being used anywhere except in the Icelandic language. OP has been using it to replace "th" sounds in English words.
And that's your cultural linguistic lesson for the day!
OP is also arguably using it incorrectly in this case. Thorn (Þ/þ) is specifically for a soft/unvoiced 'th' like that in "thorn" or "with" or "thought".
The voiced "th" sound, as you see in "this" or "feather" or "brother", is actually Eth (or Daet, pronounced the same as "that"), which is written as Ð/ð.
So he is pretentious AND wrong, got it
I just had a look at ðeir bio, and correctness isn't necessarily ðeir priority lol
(EDIT to save you a click, it says: "Imagine a world in which enough people generate enough content containing þe Old English þorn (voiceless dental fricative) and eþ (voiced dental fricative) characters þat þey start showing up in AI generated content.")
Only incorrect if you're speaking icelandic. In middle English, þ was used for both voiced and unvoiced.
Nice! I knew the "ð" character was also a "th" sound, but I didn't realize the subtle differences in pronunciation. I thought it was just used in other languages that don't have the "þ" character.
For what it's worth, þ and ð can sometimes be used interchangeably for English, particularly now that the lines have been blurred with the consolidation into "th" (e.g. 'with' is usually a soft 'th' for me but 'without' is hard; 'cloth' is soft but 'clothing' and 'clothes' are hard, etc.), and English overall went through a substantial phonetic shift between when those letters were used and today.
But if OP wants to be pedantic about archaic letter use, I withhold the right to be equally so.
I've always understood a thorn in the to be used correctly as it's why we see 'ye' instead of 'the' used when referencing old English.
https://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/07/26/ye-olde-mispronunciation-the-long-forgotten-letter-thorn/
What’s the actual difference between voiced an unvoiced? The “th” sounds that same in all of these words
In simplest terms, voiced sounds engage the vocal cords, unvoiced ones do not.
To compare more directly with what would be otherwise an identical syllable:
The "th" in "this" is voiced.
The "th" in "thistle" is not.
Trying saying the first syllable of "thistle". Does it sound different to when you say "this"?
The big eth always takes me out because it's the same simbol as Đ in south slavic languages that is pronounced like the j in James/Jack.
And we all know what that makes OP.
A petaQ?
Thorn would be correct in this case. Eth wasn’t preferred over thorn. In modern english you could in theory split them via voiced and unvoiced but historically they were interchangeable.
The letter thorn that you use is why we have “Ye olde tavern”. Y was used as a substitute for thorn since olde english typesetters didn’t have thorn in the sets they got from Belgium.
Thanks, now I don’t feel wrong for blocking them.
Honestly... yeah, fucking agreed. It makes me irrationally angry and why invite that in?
“Something is wrong with my th keys and I don’t have any money” would have been ok, but you nailed it with “irrationally angry”
So they're a thorn in your side eh
Good video on old characters, thorn being the first of them (Skip to second 36 if you're too excited).
https://youtu.be/wJxKyh9e5_A