tidbit versus titbit?

[Joel S. Berson]

The OED suggests from tit (n3), with the
connotation of "small" (and agrees hat "tid-bit" is earlier).

Joel

At 10/23/2007 09:54 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 8:24 AM -0400 10/23/07, Rachel Sommer wrote:
>>David Mar, an Australian, writes in the annotation to his Irregular Webcomic
>>(http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1731.html):
>>
>>The etymology of the word "titbit" is interesting. As best I can ascertain
>>>  without access to a copy of the Oxford
>>> English Dictionary, the original form
>>>  was "tidbit", from the Middle English *tyd*, meaning choice or special,
>>>  and *bit*, meaning a small morsel. At some point the British converted
>>>  this to "titbit" for some reason I haven't been able to uncover
>
>to achieve the rhymed syllables, I assume, or
>"assimilation at a distance", which amounts here
>to the same result
>
>LH
>
>>, and this
>>>  spelling and pronunciation is now the most
>>> common in the UK and Commonwealth
>>>  nations. The "tidbit" spelling remains as an
>>> alternative in use in the USA,
>>>  although it seems to have been a relatively recent re-invention, appearing
>>>  in the US only as recently as the mid-19th
>>> century. It's not that the US has
>>>  *preserved* the original spelling, but that
>>> they have for some reason *gone
>>>  back to it* after an intervening couple of centuries when everyone used
>>>  "titbit".
>>>
>>>  There is some speculation that the (relatively) recent American change was
>>>  prompted by a prudish desire to sanitise the language of "rude syllables",
>>>  changing the potentially titillating (pun intended) "tit" for "tid".
>>>  However, there doesn't appear to be any solid evidence for this as the
>>>  reason.
>>
>>Anyone know why we USAians are different?
>>
>>--
>>--
>>Rachel Sommer
>>As the Italian proverb says:
>>L'aritmetica non è opinione (arithmetic is not an opinion).
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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