re Minimal pairs

Gordon Selway gordonselway at gn.apc.org
Thu Oct 19 11:19:18 UTC 2000


With some variation in the vowel, the British/English English pronunciations
are all blaidh ('Hail to thee, blithe spirit ...'; Blyth in Northumberland;
Blythe Bridge in Staffordshire).

But I am not omniscient in these matters ....

[The late Professor E Fraenkel was unaware that 'threepence' is/was (in the
days of shillings and pence at 20/240 to the pound sterling) in some places
pronounced as 'three' plus 'pence', not the 'threppence' or 'thruppence' which
were the most common articulations.  For some reason, after the pound turned
into 100 pence instead (by way of 100 new pence, everyone took up the 'three
pence' version, perhaps because of a tendency on the part of some to say X pee,
not X pence, and the insertion of the 'new'.  And a new locution 'one pence'
appeared as well.  Do not know if this new singular is yet in any part of the
OED.

Sorry - that looks more relevant to another current thread.]

Gordon
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>


At 10:49 am 18/10/00, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>My impression is that US pronunciations for <blithe, Blyth, Blythe> are
>regional perhaps analogous to the greasy-greazy pronunciations in this one
>case

>In Ohio, where I grew up, I only heard /blaiTH/ but in the South (South >Carolina, Mississippi) I usually hear /blaiDH/

>What is the usual British pronunciation?



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