thy thigh etc.

[Larry Trask]

--On Saturday, May 26, 2001 3:22 pm -0500 Rick Mc Callister
<rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

[quoting]

>> English speakers
>> have no trouble with names like Vladivostock or words like zloty.

> I don't know about that. Most Americans pronounce zloty /zl-/ rather than
> /zw-/

Yes, but the point is that we have no trouble pronouncing /zl-/ in this
word even though this initial cluster occurs in no native or ordinary
words, and perhaps in no word at all apart from this one.  Anyway, the
choice of /zl-/ is determined by the spelling.  We have no trouble with the
alien /zw-/, either: we use this in 'zwiebach' and in the chemical term
'zwitterion',
even though the German originals have /tsv-/.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)