Ye olde

"Ye olde" is a pseudo-Early Modern English phrase originally used to suggest a connection between a place or business and Merry England (or the medieval period).

The term dates to 1896 or earlier;[1] it continues to be used today, albeit now more frequently in an ironically anachronistic and kitsch fashion.

One major reason for this was that ⟨y⟩ existed in the blackletter types that William Caxton and his contemporaries imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while ⟨Þ⟩ did not,[3] resulting in (yͤ) as well as ye.

The connection became less obvious after the letter thorn was discontinued in favour of the digraph ⟨th⟩.

Today, ye is often incorrectly pronounced as the archaic pronoun of the same spelling.