Ye Olde Shoppe

I had always wondered about this one. It made absolutely no sense. It turns out there is a reason for it.

The Old English definite article was at one point «þe», with the Germanic rune þ (read «thorn», equivalent to Greek θ or English th). So, it would've been «Þe Olde Shoppe».

It seems that at some point in the 16th century printers started substituting Y for Þ because they didn't have a Þ and they thought Y looked like it. In such cases, the word would've still been pronounced with the þ/θ sound. They also would've typed words such as «þat» to read «yt».

The practice continued through the 18th century, but was a joke by 1896.

Little People of Flores

I saw this segment on PBS's NOVA scienceNOW. It featured fossils found on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Apparently, these people, dubbed Homo floresiensis, grew to be only about one meter tall, with brains about one third the size of ours. Even with this small brain, there is evidence that they used fire, tools, and even language.

What's even more amazing is that the locals tell stories of a mythical people they call the Ebu Gogo. These stories seem to match what the paleontologists have found, suggesting that the Homo floresiensis coëxisted with Homo sapiens, maybe even in recent times. In fact, one found fossil was only about 13,000 years old.

See also:

• Wikipedia's entry
• National Geographic's story on the find