Re: English {phth} (was: Hellenish oddities)

Raymond Brown wrote:
>
> At 9:02 pm -0500 23/12/00, Robert Hailman wrote:
> >"H. S. Teoh" wrote:
> [....]
> >> > Is <phthong> pronounced with [fT] in English? I would think it'd just
> >>be [T]
> >> > (but I'd probably say [fT] just to be different).
> >> [snip]
> >>
> >> I pronounce it as [fT].
> >
> >On it's own, I say it [T], in words like <diphthong> I say [fT]. [fT] is
> >just too hard to begin a word with for me.
>
> Yep, that the normal English practice - same as we don't normally pronounce
> the initial p- in Ptolemy, pterodactyl, ptyalin etc.  But elsewhere we do
> pronounce the -p-, e.g. helicopter.
Interestingly enough, I do pronounce the initial P in "Ptolemy", but not
in any other "pt"-initial words.

> But medial [fT] is interesting in that in colloquial speech one often hears
> [pT] - years ago when "diphtheria" was, sadly, occurred more often in
> speech, one heard it pronounced [dIp'Ti:ri@] more often than not IIRC.  And
> I've definitely heard people talk about ['dIpTONz].
Glancing at "diphthongs", [pT] is consistently what comes to mind - in
any other word I'd pronounce it that way, I've just learned that [fT] is
correct in that one case. I guess my mind just has trouble breaking down
"phth". If it was spelled "fth" I wouldn't have any trouble with it.

--
Robert