308: Ye and Þ Oct 12, 2015

'Ye' was the the plural of 'thou' ('þou'), back when English differentiated between second person singular and plural. The mistaken connection between 'ye' and 'the' is due to printing presses. In late Middle English þ came to be written identically with y, so that 'the' could be written 'ye', but it would always be pronounced as þ.