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Re: USAGE: Language revival

From:Ed Heil <edheil@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 30, 1999, 8:00
Raymond Brown wrote:

> It became /Ofn=/ somewhere round about the time of Elizabeth Ist - and > spellings like 'offen' were not uncommon. It was part of the same > phenomenon that saw /t/ disappear in words like 'castle', 'apostle' etc. > > The /t/ has now been widely restored in 'often' (co-incidentally during the > reign of Elizabeth II :) I would regard as a spelling pronunciation > rather than a hypercorrection (tho this is possibly splitting hairs, as > they say) - but certainly not say that one pronunciation is right and > another's wrong. > > Indeed, I sometimes think it'd be nice to restore /t/ in words like > 'castle', 'apostle' etc. (I have heard 'epistle' pronounced /I'pIstl=/ )
How odd. I have always proudly failed to spelling-pronounce "often," but I have never in my life heard someone pronounce the "t" in "castle," and I have never in my life heard someone fail to pronounce the "t" in "apostle" or "epistle."
> 'Twas always /'fOrId/ when I was a youngster, just as tortoises were always > /'tO:t@zIs/ (or /'tOrt@zIs/ among the old-timers :)
Ah, that explains why it rhymes with "horrid" in the nursery rhyme. :) --------------------------------------------------------------------- edheil@postmark.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------