"Drouth"/Drouthy

[William Salmon]

Do people who prefer 'drouth' (with /-t/) also prefer 'drouthy' (with
/-t/)?

I say 'drouth' (with /-t/), but in adjective form it is 'drouThy' with
final theta. I would never say it the other way. Though, the OED does
offer both pronunciations of 'drouthy'.

Having grown up in south Texas, I have had the opportunity to use and
hear both 'drouth' and 'drouthy' on occasion, and I don't recall ever
having heard 'drouthy' pronounced with /-t/.



> At 8:48 AM -0500 11/7/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>> Some 35 years ago a friend--a learned linguist who has since become
>> eminent in the field--heard me pronounce "height" with a theta at
>> the end. He hypothesized that mine was a "misspelling
>> pronunciation"--that I had visualized the word with the final "h"
>> and "t" interchanged, and then pronounced it accordingly.
>>
>> In fact, of course, the /-T/ form of "height," like the /-T/ form of
>> "drought," has alternated with the /-t/ form for many centuries (in
>> both pronunciation and spelling). But I have, ever since that
>> conversation, been intrigued by the concept of "misspelling
>> pronunciations." What might real examples be? With most of the words
>> that our students ubiquitously misspell, like "occurrence" and
>> "separate," pronunciation would not be affected (or, rather, the
>> misspelling is based on the phonology).
>>
>> --Charlie
>
> Wouldn't the /T/ in "author" be one?  And the one in "Anthony" (U.S.
> pronunciation) be another?
>
> LH
>
>> _____________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>>> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 09:23:37 -0500
>>> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>>
>>> "Drouth" doesn't look odd, Charlie!. It looks like an old friend!
>>> It's the same with "height." We spell it "height," but we pronounce
>>> it "high-th." That's pure-dee East-Texan! "Drought" is like some
>>> weird pronunciation-spelling.
>>>
>>> -Wilson
>>
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>
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>



~Will Salmon

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