
Episode 153: Zombie Letters
The History of English Podcast
00:00
The History of the T H Spelling
In the early modern era, those english writers and printers wanted to indicate that those words had a greek origin. So once again, they went back and replaced the f with the old p h from classical latin. Some words like plosophy had retained their p hes over the centuries, so there was no need to change the spelling in those words. However, fantasy, spelled p h a n t a s y, is still used sometimes, and can still be found in many modern dictionaries. There's one last greek sound that also received the new h spelling in latin and has survived until the modern day,. And this is a fascinating story in itself.
Transcript
Play full episode