tidbit versus titbit?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>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, 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.

Was there any 'reinvention' of "tidbit"? What is the evidence?

Google Books search in works dated 1750-1850 shows both "tidbit" and
"titbit" many times, and both appear to have been used on both sides
of the Pond during this time. Some entries in reference books showed
both alternatives, e.g. "titbit (properly tidbit)" [published London,
1819]. I see "titbit" used by Washington Irving, "tidbit" by Thomas
Moore. This is just at a casual glance. I did not attempt to count
the instances ... or to identify the birthplaces of the authors ...
or to guess whether each spelling was that of the author or of the editor.

-- Doug Wilson


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