"Drouth"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:24 PM +0000 11/7/07, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
>I thought you were thinking of things like the "t" in "often"

Well, there's no "misspelling" in that case; I was assuming we were
distinguishing novel-spelling-induced innovative pronuncations (as in
"author", "Anthony", or "chaise lounge") from ordinary spelling
pronunciations (as in "often", "forehead", or "waistcoat").  Useful
distinctions, I think, although the category labels may not be ideal.

LH

>------Original Message------
>From: Charles Doyle
>Sender: ADS-L
>To: ADS-L
>ReplyTo: ADS-L
>Sent: Nov 7, 2007 3:19 PM
>Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Drouth"
>
>I believe Larry is speaking historically: Until the 16th century,
>"autor" or "autour" was the normal spelling, presumably representing
>the standard English pronunciation. Sometime in the 15th century,
>Frenchmen started spelling the word "authour," which would
>(probably) represent the same pronunciation as "autour." However,
>when the French (mis?-)spelling "authour" made its way to England,
>Englishmen began pronouncing the word with an unhistorical [T] or
>theta.
>
>Similarly with the proper name "Anthony" . . .
>
>--Charlie
>____________________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 17:10:04 +0000
>>From: ronbutters at AOL.COM
>>
>>"Be" what? How else would one spell these words (or pronounce them
>>as they are normally uttered in the USA?)
>>____________________
>>
>>Larry Horn wrote:
>>
>>Wouldn't the /T/ in "author" be one?  And the one in "Anthony"
>>(U.S. pronunciation) be another?
>
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