this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts
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I'm not sure where you're from, but the th is indeed silent in my area regarding the word 'clothes'. I've never heard it pronounced any different than 'close'.
Now if it's said as 'clothing', the th is indeed pronounced. But not for 'clothes'. And I've worked at a clothing store before.
You might be thinking of the word 'cloths', which indeed does pronounce the th.
English is weird like that.
I'm not sure where you're from, the th in is always pronounced in my area regarding the word 'clothes'. I've never heard it pronounced the same as 'close'
I will say that people got called out for pronouncing it the same as the spice 'cloves'.
FWIW My area = rural southern UK.
Yeah absolutely not silent. Unless perhaps you're a cockney. Source: I'm in northern England. Perhaps it is a British thing.
I'm in the US and I pronounce it, I think a lot of people do? Maybe I just know a lot of snobs and "regular" Americans mush the word together but I don't think so
Oh well that's easy then, it's because you guys speak British, not English!
Kidding aside, I lived in East Anglia for a few years as a kid and I don't remember the British kids saying it that way either, but that was a really long time ago and my memory ain't what it used to be! I think. I can't remember how it used to be actually.
Fighting talk, sirrah! Fighting talk.... But yes, I guess.
British English has been described as three languages dressed up in a trenchcoat that go around mugging other languages in dark alleys and stealing the best bits...
You seem like the sort of person that would pronounce the word often with a hard T, yet still pronounce the letter A as if it was an O.
Not at all. Used to make fun of people who did.
No - there are two sounds for A, bath (short, as in cat) for tub of usually hot water and Bath (long, as in car) for the city famous for its hot water. Never heard it like O - no, wait... RP has an O sounding A doesn't it? Lloyd Grossman was famous for his mangling of vowel sounds.
ETA that distinction for the A sound is probably familial rather than regional; grew up with Geordie mam and Home counties dad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_pronunciation_differences
Meanwhile, why do we pronounce cheese as cheeze?
Who threw the Z sound in there?
Yeh cheese as cheeze is an odd one - especially considering the z is "zed" not "zee"... I guess cheese is where the idea of "zee" came from?
Additional question..
Who decided to include the letter D in the pronunciation of the letter Z?
Zed?
Where did that come from? We don't say it that way over here in the states, we just say zee..
I would ask "why did you left ponders choose to change the pronunciation to zee?" - though given many USAian pronunciations are, apparently, closer to Elizabethan English than the current UK sounds I wouldn't like to guess which came first the zed or the zee....
Probably because D has absolutely nothing to do with Z.
So on laundry day you put away your clo_s_ing? The rest of us have clo_th_ing.
I can edit also.