thee for the

[Matthew Gordon]

Not surprisingly, there are lots of Google hits for "Thee Ohio State
University." Is the obsessive use of the definite article here a newish
phenomenon? It first came to my attention in the early 90s.

-Matt Gordon


On 11/12/07 9:52 PM, "James Harbeck" <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:

> A restaurant in the Agincourt part of Toronto (often called
> Asiancourt because of its high percentage of Chinese and other East
> Asian residents) is called Thee Asian Kitchen. You can find its
> website at http://www.theeasiankitchen.com/ . It serves Thai,
> Japanese, and Chinese cuisine. My initial take on it is that this is
> intended to be a somehow "classier" or more formal/archaic rendering
> of "the". It could, on the other hand, be a Thai name ("thee" is, I
> think, a word in Thai).
>
> A little looking on the web finds Thee Bungalow,
> http://www.theebungalow.com/ , in San Diego -- it has apparently been
> there for 30 years. You can also find assorted hits if you Google
> |thee shoppe|, for instance http://www.theeamishshoppe.com/ and
> http://www.theeclockmaker.com/ .
>
> Evidently this isn't especially uncommon or new (well, of course,
> "thee" can be seen for "the" in some Middle English texts) in
> signage, but I have to say I'm far more used to seeing "Ye" (always
> reanalyzed, of course -- nobody knows about thorn these days!). For
> this area in particular (Toronto and, more specifically, Agincourt),
> I think the "thee" is something new. The only other business I can
> find with "thee" in its name in the Toronto area in yellowpages.ca is
> Thee Place for Paws Grooming Studio in Barrie (an exurb of Toronto).
> I find three "Ye Oldes". (Googling "ye olde" gets 1,890,000; "thee
> olde" gets 3,630, but it would seem that "thee" can be used without
> the "olde" whereas "ye" always seems to get it -- I'm sure if anyone
> has exceptions I'll hear of it.)
>
> I wonder whether "thee" use in this way is on the increase or
> decrease or is level.
>
> Just incidentally, "kermit thee frog" gets 381 ghits. But I don't
> have a sense (purely impressionistically) that "thee" for emphatic
> "the" is really current.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org