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Re: USAGE: English eth

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Thursday, November 8, 2001, 17:51
Adam Walker wrote:


> You forgot its compliment thither.
Right.
> And again here, probably because of wherewithall.
I have /'weIRwiDOl/. In standard orthography, there is only one 'l' in both withal and wherewithal.
> There's also the noun withers and withershins.
Withers, yes. I have widdershins, with /d/, but m-w.com lists withershins as a variant.
>> wreathe, > > When it's a verb. As a noun it has /T/.
As a noun it's spelled "wreath".
> /T/ and /D/ are an odd pair aren't they.
Earlier varieties of English (and some dialects still?) had no phonemic voicing contrasts in fricatives. Since then, all fricative phonemes save /h/ have split (f/v, s/z, T/D, S/Z) but to varying degrees, and even now there is not very much functional load on any of these four. -- Not to perambulate || John Cowan <jcowan@...> the corridors || http://www.reutershealth.com during the hours of repose || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan in the boots of ascension. \\ Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel

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