Re: Pre-Kindergarten diphthong analysis

On 19/09/2008, J R <tanuef@...> wrote:
>  I remember insisting when I was younger that 'tree' must be spelled 'chree',
>  because the word began with /tS/, and we had learned that /tS/ was spelled
>  'ch'. I was told in resonse that it did not begin with /tS/, but with 't'.
>  While I was right, I was also wrong ... since /S/ is automatically inserted
>  into a /tr/ sequence, it makes sense to spell it with a 't' as well.
Perhaps a better response for that situation might have been,
"Spelling is based on a standard pronunciation; in this case, the
standard pronunciation has /tr/ rather than the /tSr/ that's common
around here, which explains why the word is spelled with |tr| and not
|chr|".

(That would also cover things such as people with pen-pin mergers, or
father-bother, which-witch, or horse-hoarse, or .... -- recourse to a
standard pronunciation in which such distinctions *are* made.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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