[Lexicog] Re: Plough mud

[rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU]

David,

   Charleston is very much a speech island of its own, with a long
history. The "gh" in English orthography, which is so troublesome
to modern speakers, was there intentionally to represent the former
phoneme /x/ (voiceless velar fricative), still found in Scots "loch"
for "lake", and still used in cognate German words: Eng right, Ger
richt, etc. The fricative was either absorbed into the vowel or not
distinguished by children from /f/, which is acoustically very similar,
hence "laugh" (Ger lauchen) or occasionally /th/, as in Southern US
"drouth" = "drought". Which pronunciations become "standard" and which
remain "regional" is often a matter of historical accident (cf. leaf
and deaf [Noah Webster preferred /dEf/), wreath and death (Scots /diyth/).

   You can now search for terms in the Dictionary of American Regional
English (DARE) at:

        http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=search/node

I did a search for "plough mud" and "plow mud" but nothing came up, so
they must have missed that. It's not in my OED either. That is something
they can include in a supplement.

   Rudy

   Rudy Troike
   Univ. of Arizona



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