thee for the

[David Donnell]

Until recently there was a place here in NYC called "Thee Coffee
Shop"--on Bleecker St, near (the) Bowery.

DD

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