Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 4th Aug 2009 16:32 UTC
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Which is okay in my book because those words were in origin the same, generally have been pronounced the same through history and have often been spelled the same. We get by with just one "when" instead of also have "whan", so why do we need "than"?
If you think than and then are pronounced the same... you might be a redneck.
They are only pronounced differently because they have been spelled differently. It's like how people put a 't' in "often", even though the 't' is long gone. It only remains in spelling. Then people saw the spelling and started pronouncing the 't'. It's still wrong.
Both "then" and "than" come from Old English "þonne" or "þanne", which regularly changes to "then" in Middle English and is fairly consistently spelled "then" (or "þen") where we would use both "than" and "then". If there's any different in pronunciation, it is solely because of the artificial distinction in spelling.





Member since:
2006-01-02
Which is okay in my book because those words were in origin the same, generally have been pronounced the same through history and have often been spelled the same. We get by with just one "when" instead of also have "whan", so why do we need "than"?