Pronunciation of <asthma> (Was: minimal pairs)

[Jim Rader]

I checked Merriam-Webster's' pronunciation files, which go back
about 50 years, and there is virtually zero evidence for a
pronunciation with an interdental consonant--however, most of the
citational evidence is from professionals in medicine and science.
Our unabridged dictionary of 1934 did contain variant
pronunciations with interdental fricatives, but they were dropped
from the more recent _Webster's Third New International_ of 1961.

A very deliberate pronunciation with edh is noted from a TV
commercial made in 1972 by Carroll O'Connor, who played the
character Archie Bunker in the U.S. television series _All in the
Family_ (1971-79).  Of course, malapropisms and
mispronunciations were part of O'Connor's "Archie Bunker" shtick,
and if he was in character when making the commercial, the
pronunciation with edh would have been taken as part of the shtick
and hence a deliberate mispronunciation.

Jim Rader

> Pete Gray writes:

> [LT]

>>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>>> any dental fricatives at all.

>> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

> Most interesting.  I have sometimes seen this pronunciation given
> as a possible alternative in dictionaries, but I have hardly ever
> heard it.

> Larry Trask