tidbit versus titbit?

[Lynne Murphy]

I always associate titbit/tidbit with the similar alternation between
hotchpotch/hodgepodge.  Maybe Americans just like voicing their consonants
more!  :)

Lynne

--On 23 October 2007 22:11 -0400 "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> 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, 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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Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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