diphthong and dictionaries being wrong

[Frank Abate]

I had to speak up on this one, as dictionaries were dragged into it.

First, syllable division is a tricky matter.  Phoneticians (some at least) seem to deny that it truly exists.  Yet, people are taught it, and have been for decades.  The divisions are not necessarily logical or baseD on pronunciation.  They are influenced by tradition, typographic standards (from the days of hot-metal typography), and spelling conventions.  There are differences in application among the various US dictionaries, but (without having done an exacting study) I would hazard a guess that they are quite minor.

In the particular case of "diphthong", all of the 4 major US college dicts (viz., Merriam Webster's, Webster's New World, Random House Webster's, and American Heritage) agree, giving "diph.thong" for the syllabic division.

I must immediately add that calling this "syllabic division" would be disputed by some of the lexicographers, who prefer to call this "word division" or perhaps "hyphenation".  The main purpose of the little "center(ed) dots" or (sometimes) hairline uprights in the headwords of standard US dictionaries (the Brits don't usually bother with them in their dicts) is to show where the word might best be divided when hyphenating.  (It's another story as to WHY the US dictionaries all do this.)

I believe the concept of syllables (please check this, you historical linguists) was simply to give an analysis of the elements of a word to allow for simplification in pedagogy.  It is not really a matter of sound, at least not always.

For "diphthong", the etymology is indeed Greek di + phthong (roughly, 'two sounds'; Gk phthong generally meaning 'voice' or even 'vowel', that is, a voiced sound).  However, the word division (or hyphenation, or syllabi(fi)cation) does properly call for separation of the two consonant blends, although etymologically are both part of the root.  Word division is a function of practices and standards of English, and often ignores etymology, as it should.

Sorry to yammer on, but I thought something had to be said to defend my fellow lexicographers.

That said, yes, dictionaries are sometimes wrong, but I would add that the standards maintained and reflected in major US dictionaries are exceptionally high.

Frank Abate

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
>
> "The (pronunciation) syllable division is before the -th-, but the etymology
> has di- + phthong 'sound'.  IRudy"
>
> You know, ever since I had trouble dividing words into syllables in the
> first grade, I've been aware of the fact that the dictionary is very often
> wrong.  Maybe the whole premise of syllable division of words is flawed.
>
> The teachers gave me a rule:  divide words between double consonants.  Fine,
> how about "little:"  Do you say LIT-TUHL, LI-TUHL or LIT-UHL?  The truth is
> there's a great deal of variation, depending on dialect and situation.
>