Re: USAGE: Thorn vs Eth

On Wed, 2002-07-10 at 02:54, Steg Belsky wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 17:18:20 +0100 Barbara Barrett
> <barbarabarrett@...> writes:
> > > > > John Jotted;
> > > > > Well, the simple fact that there isn't any minimal pair
> > between
> > > > > /T/ and /D/,
>
> > Barbara Babbles;
> > I'm sure that these qualify;
> > sooth /su:T/ and soothe /su:D/
> > although "sooth" is pretty archaic nowadays, however,
> > these get pretty close to a minimal pair;
> >  Bath /baT/ and Bathe /beID/
> >  with /wIT/ and width /wIdD/
> -
>
> You actually pronounce "width" /wIdD/?
I do to. And I pronounce 'fifth' and 'eighth' with /tT/s. Why one is in
'eighth' is fairly clear. I'm guessing it only found it's way into
'fifth' to separate the /f/ and /T/. Or maybe I pronounce 'width' as
/wItT/. I think perhaps there's no phonemic difference between /tT/ and
/dD/.

> I've always as far as i remember pronounced it /wIT/, as a homophone with
> "with".
>
> Actually, in elementary school i got in trouble with my teacher during a
> homophone/homonym project for pointing out that "our" can be homophonous
> with both "hour" and "are", depending on whether you're pronouncing it
> [&wr=] or [ar].  I generally use the [ar] version, myself.
For me, 'our' is a near homonym with 'ow!' (the difference being the
length and tone of voice used to say it ;) ), but nothing else.

Tristan.