OED spelling guidance

Posted by Chris Samuel on May 4th, 2008
2008
May 4

The OED has a spelling FAQ, so if you’re ever at a loss at whether it’s email, e-mail, Email or E-mail, then worry no more, the OED website says:

We recommend email, as this is now by far the most common form. If in doubt with other words, hyphenate - this is the most comprehensible form of such words.

That same section also has a page on how “ye” came about, and why it doesn’t mean “the”:

The use of ye for the, like the use of f for s, results from a misreading of old letter-forms, in this case the letter ‘thorn’ (for the sound ‘th’), which in its plain version looks like a p with the stem extended above the loop. ‘Thorn’ originated as a runic letter, and is still used in writing the Icelandic language.

Apparently it was mainly used to refer to more than one person as the subject of a sentence.

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