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Re: USAGE: Thorn vs Eth

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 9, 2002, 14:59
Muke Tever scripsit:

> I was *going* to say "zither", but that one turns out to be ultimately from > Greek anyway.
Yeah, zither < kithara, who woulda thunk it, via Latin and French. m-w.com likes both /T/ and /D/ in zither, probably reflecting a tension between etymology and normal English speech habits.
> And that I thought "mathom" was /"m(Tm=/ doesn't count either, I suppose.
Umm, no.
> "prithee" sometimes has /T/, depending on idiolect.
Archaic words often have uncertain pronunciations. "Machinal" is evenly divided between /'m&kIn@l/ and /m@'Sin@l/.
> "pithy" and other -th-y > always do (but then, there's another morpheme boundary there).
Right enough. I also have not mentioned "th" as /t/, as in Thomas and Anthony (traditionally, though many North Americans including my brother have /T/ here). -- John Cowan <jcowan@...> http://www.reutershealth.com http://www.ccil.org/~cowan .e'osai ko sarji la lojban. Please support Lojban! http://www.lojban.org