Oh those booths

[R. M. Cleminson]

I remember in the mid-80s a sportsman by the name of Booth being interviewed in Australia and asked "Is that Booth [θ] as in 'polling booth [θ]'?", to which he replied "No, it's  Booth [ð] as in 'polling booth [ð]'."  This seems to suggest that it depends what sort of English you speak. I can't think of any variety of British English that would use the unvoiced variant.

However, I don't think the plural [buːðs] is right in any sort of English, and to my ear the voice on www.howjsay.com says [buːðz].

The rule that determines the final voicing seems to be connected with the length of the vowel.  Thus tooth, Ruth with shorter vowel and unvoiced final consonant, booth, soothe with longer vowel and voiced consonant.  (Would I be right in thinking that the vowel in Austr. E. "booth" is also shortened?)  I would hesitate to assume that the link is simply causal, though, at least in that direction. Consider roof:roofs versus hoof:hooves -- both short vowels in the former pair, the vowel lengthened in the plural of the latter, which suggests that it might be the voiced final consonant that's lengthening the vowel, rather than the other way round.

----- Pôvodná správa -----
Od: "Goloviznin Konstantin" <kottcoos at GMAIL.COM>
Komu: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Odoslané: utorok, 31. január 2012 13:03:29
Predmet: [SEELANGS] Oh those booths

Hello all,

There is some doubt about pronunciation of the word booths.
Dictionaries  give two variants for singular of it . Those are
[buːð] and [buːθ]. Сorrespondingly the plural for them should be
[buːðz] and [buːθs]. But listening to it on the site www.howjsay.com
gives [buːðs]. Am I right about my hearing and this time it's  only
some exception to the rule "after voiced - voiced, after unvoiced -
unvoiced" or something else?

Thanks in advance,
Konstantin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
_____________________________________________________________________

Sprievodca hernym svetom - http://hry.sme.sk/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------