Re: Orthography help needed

Amanda Babcock wrote at 2004-04-09 14:35:54 (-0400)
 > On Fri, Apr 09, 2004 at 07:13:15PM +0100, Tim May wrote:
 >
 > > Yes, of course.  I'm aware of "with", and I pronounce it as you
 > > do.  What I meant by "unusual" is that it's the only example I
 > > can think of.  The point I was trying to make is that there's no
 > > orthographic convention to represent final /D/ in these
 > > situations; <with> is the exception, and is presumably able to
 > > survive as such precisely because it's a common word.
 >
 > Soothe vs. sooth.  Seems like the final e might be the orthographic
 > convention, except that would only work with a strong vowel before
 > the 'th', wouldn't it?

Precisely.  That's what I meant by "short vowel" and "these
situations"; |ethe| surely produces /D/ but not /E/.  (Here, at least,
it would have the added disadvantage that it could be analysed as a
foreign or archaic form, and pronounced as a disyllable.  And that
it's a neologism, whereas at least some people already use |edh|.)

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